One Small Consequence
by G.E Waldo
Summary: Once is usually enough when cheating on love. Relationship angst and a few other things, too.
1. Chapter 1

One Small Consequence

Part If

By GeeLady

**Time-line:** Post-season 6

**Summary: **Once is usually enough when cheating love. Relationship angst and a few other things, too.

**Pairing:** House/Wilson

**Rating:** NC-17, Adult, +18, Mature. Language. Sexual situations. SLASH.

**Disclaimer:** The guy with cane doesn't belong to me, yadda, yadda...

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Epilogue #1

Pain like this didn't come around every other day. Every few years, perhaps - its established pattern. It was that delivery of a hard blow to your gut, deep-seated aching kind of hurt. He remembered it well. Hadn't missed it, but what are ya' gonna' do?

It was an ache that dashed your beliefs to tiny wind-blown bits, along with his apology fit for no one. Clearly not fit for you, and you wonder again why you were stupid enough to finally crumble under his gentle eyes and trust him with everything. Your everything, naturally, was loving him completely and, also naturally, assuming he felt the same way.

He certainly said so often enough. Good with words, that one. The only trust that he followed through on, though, was to drive a stake through your heart and make you doubt everything you had heard from his mouth from the first kiss until the day you walked away.

Two years from your life was no small number when you'd already seen over fifty of them, and when so few of those had been happy.

The snow outside the waiting to board area was piling up. Looks like another delay was in the air, because the planes would certainly not be. House twirled his cane and tried to thrust all images of Wilson from his mind. He also worked very hard on not thinking about his fellowships and his old job and his, if so it could be called, old life.

But the movie of the last two years lopped in his mind, twisting its nostalgic pain deeper, mixing with the profoundly stinging wound he carried around day to day. Hidden and leaking with fresh injury when his lover's face flashed across his thoughts, sent there from a laughing god to mock him. Good memories, when served with awful ones, sucked. When a deity has it out for you, you may as well put your head down and learn to take it.

House bit his lip. He had a scar there, now, too. One on top of another, actually. One from an open-handed retort sent his way by a very angry mother. One from biting his lip every day since Wilson proved he was directly in charge of the relationship - or lack there-of - and had been from the start. That fresh scar came back again and again from worrying it with his teeth, while repeatedly musing over how it got there.

Wilson and his damn ring.

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Chapter I

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House smiled, two fingers tickling the papers inside his right pocket. His heavy coat today. New Jersey seemed to have skipped the news about global warming. This winter was proving to be an especially cold one. The pocket papers made him feel warm inside, and that's about all the sentiment House allowed himself over it. _Don't get all mushy, people will mistake you for Wilson._

House unlocked their apartment door and pushed it open with his cane while struggling with the paper bag of light beer. He wasn't crazy about light beer, but a promise is a promise, and it was better than those lip puckering sweet cooler's Wilson was in to. He really didn't care how girlie Wilson sometimes was, he himself was in a sexy mood and nobody anymore, but Wilson, fit the bill.

"House - hi."

Wilson's _Hi_ was off. There was not much room for it, but House still heard the distinct worry wedged between its two tiny letters.

Wilson tried to disguise his nervous edge by asking about House's day. "How's the case?"

House felt his heart pounding, suddenly and painfully, like it knew something was up even before he did. "Over. Guy's going to make it."

House smelled perfume. They had company. _Oh Jesus and his band of merry men. _"Aren't you going to introduce me to our visitor." He hoped like hell that's all she was, may she remain nameless, faceless and be gone before he cracked his first beer.

Wilson swallowed. House could see the up and down bob of his prominent Adam's apple. So, not an ordinary visitor. It took particular kinds of attentions to make Wilson swallow that deeply. This swallow wasn't the happy kind that came at the end of a come.

Wilson waved a feeble hand toward a woman sitting on their couch. New butter-soft leather couch with the extra soft pillows Wilson had insisted on. House didn't like the cream shade in the beginning but he had grown used to it. And it was very soft and comfortable.

The woman, a petite brunette with large boobs, was seated on their new, softer couch, holding a baby.

House fished, but he could see the deadly shark in the woman's eyes and her fin splitting the surface of his life not far off shore, swimming closer every minute.

"New patient?" House asked evenly. No chance in hell. A patient wouldn't come to their home.

Wilson took a deep breath and shook his head. "No. Listen-"

House didn't give him a chance to speak yet. His heart was sinking below the surface now. He never could tread water very well. "Cousin and her new- " House peered more closely at the kid - "boy?"

Wilson shook his head, standing as straight as a length of rebar, holding up the shaking walls of his life around him. House could see the bend of the weight of it on Wilson's slim frame. House could feel the cracks in those walls. He could already hear the crumbling thunder. "Long lost sister and your new nephew?"

Wilson looked at the floor. "House-"

House turned away to hang up his coat. The papers inside the pocket didn't crinkle to reveal their hidden presence. "This is my last shot." House announced. "An ex-wife you never told me about, to whom you donated sperm sometime back?" House glanced at the baby again, "twenty-two months or so back, that is?" Just three months into his and Wilson's new, living together intimately, in-love, in-serious sexual relationship.

Wilson looked back at him miserably. "No."

House nodded. An ex-bang, then.

House couldn't help it, he flushed with shame and embarrassment, for himself, for the woman; even for Wilson and his pathetically weak penis. Shame also, because he'd just been lumped into the pile of Wilson's other "serious" relationships; the kind that had in almost every case, ended with Wilson dropping his pants for a one, sometimes two, night stand. It took considerable effort not to let his watering eyes spill over so both of the cheaters could see how much it hurt.

Just as he was about to voice his opinion of Wilson's two-timing dick, House took another look at the kid. Deep set, brown eyes, a shock of thick dark hair. Baby nose trying to morph its way into the world to become more like his daddy's sharp ski-jump of a schnoz.

House couldn't even articulate the pain he felt now. This wasn't just a one-night stand, this was a one-night stand with consequences. He took a deep breath to calm his nerves and get his shattering feelings under control. "Yours?" Was all he could manage. A whisper so soft, Wilson winced. The pair of cheaters heard the sorrow in it.

The woman on the couch, shark-lady, already gnawing on his flesh, finally opened her mouth and spoke. "He was the only one."

House huffed, his disbelief made crystal clear. "Right."

House limped to the other side of the room, well away from Wilson and his new consequences seated on their new comfortable couch with the downy soft cushions. "I s'pose DNA's already done?"

Wilson nodded. That meant for weeks Wilson had kept this guilty knowledge from him. For over a year, actually, when the guilty knowledge had groaned and come inside the shark, planting another tiny shark to take hold and rip apart his world.

House looked around at his little world. Furniture and art. Books and music. Laughing and arguing. Wilson and him. Kissing and sex. Happy, all of it.

Incredible how a couple of minutes can turn it all sideways and sour. The memories were bitter in his mouth now. Along-side a year of Wilson's words of love, hands of caresses, and body of sexual pleasures, lay a year of lying.

The apartment belonged to a stranger.

Fishing was over, and it was too late to pull in his rod. Wilson had known it intimately. House had once loved that he did.

House suddenly couldn't bear to be in the same room with anyone, least of all, the cheater and his thirteen month old consequence. He gathered up his coat and walked to the door. "When your little surprise guest has gone home, call me. I'll be at the hospital."

A new case. He needed a distraction. A big one. Something new and really weird so he could keep himself occupied for days and days and delay the implosion threatening at the very edges of his control. Already he could see and smell the bleach stink of packed cardboard boxes and the masking tape. Already his heart was betraying him with an ache he could hardly get his head around, and only the promise of more.

_FUCK! _

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House stayed at the office, working his fellowships to the bone and himself to a pile of oily rags. He ate there, slept in his chair, and showered there. He showered twice, sometimes three times a day, recognizing it as a sub-conscious and ultimately fruitless attempt to rid himself of the stink of rejection. He still felt dirty. Second-hand. Worthless. Even the one who said he loved him the most didn't think enough of him to keep his fly zipped.

It was worse than the Stacey years. Stacey had never cheated. Or if she had, he didn't know about it. He wished he didn't know about this either. Wished Wilson would have just met the woman somewhere and paid her off, then he'd be showering and eating at home, and Wilson would still be in their bed every night. Useless wishes.

Cuddy had cajoled and begged him to go home and talk to Wilson, or go to his office and talk to him.

"Nothing to say." He had answered. "A baby can't be un-born, a nine-month gestation can't be un-gestated, and Wilson's cheating dick can't un-cheat." Not even once, it seemed. Not even for him.

Cuddy had given up the argument for reconciliation or forgiveness.

"No forgiveness required." House said. "It's in his nature to cheat. I should have remembered that." I should have stayed clear.

Cuddy stared at one of her longest friends and her employee of twelve years. "How are you, though? Really?"

"I'm-" He was about to say fine, but then Cuddy wouldn't believe him and would stay and keep at him. So "I'm coping. I'm _thinking._ I just don't know what I want to do yet."

Cuddy touched his upper arm. Intimate enough that it was more than an office touch, but respectful enough that it wasn't improperly intimate. Cuddy knew the exact amount of touch or no-touch when-ever things had been bad for him. She had always managed a fine balance between intimacy and love, and she knew they went together. He should have lived with her.

"If you need me, I'm here." Was her final word for the day.

House nodded, managing a very small, polite smile of gratitude. They both knew he wouldn't come to her. Not for this.

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At the end of day five of living at the hospital, coming home once to get a few changes of clothes, in the middle of the day when Wilson was in his office, the cheater in question walked into his office one evening un-announced and uninvited.

"Get out." House said succinctly.

Wilson shook his head. He looked awful. Awful for Wilson. Hair still as neat as a pin, clothes fresh and pressed. Only the bags under his eyes betray that anything morose had happened during the past few days. "No. We have to talk about this."

"About what?" House asked. He tried to not say any more. Clamped his mouth shut but it opened anyway. "Your wandering penis? Your new little consequence that's going to drain you financially dry - I hope she gets _all_ of it." She got everything else.

This was the worst thing Wilson could have done to him. Breaking his Flying V, selling his piano, wrapping his corvette around a tree; inanimate objects that can't take their clothes off - _anything_ would have been easier than this. Selling his piano out from underneath him would have made him furious, but not feel worthless. A piano had no stock in his self-worth, it being gone wouldn't have made him feel like he was flawed at his base-line. Or made his heart ache so badly that, whenever he let himself think about it too much, breathing became difficult.

"I fucked up." Wilson said. "Really, really fucked up."

"We're in agreement."

"And I'm so very sorry."

"I know." But it didn't undo the framework beneath. The structure that existed in Wilson's mind and heart that served to make him value House in words only, but not in act. Just like all his ex-'s. House was now, for all intents and purposes, Wilson's ex'. He was now one of Wilson's former bang's, and none in particular.

House pulled out a small orange vial of pills and shook two into his hand.

Wilson followed his movements in shock. "Is that Vicodin?"

Defiant to the last stand, "Who wants to know?" House popped the pills in his mouth.

Wilson realized that he had no right to bring it up. Not now. "Can't we discuss this?"

House saw Foreman and Taub from the corner of his eye. They were doing paper work late into the night. House didn't care what kind of show he and Wilson were about to give them. Besides, they probably wouldn't care either.

"Say what you're going to say." House said. He was numb. Emotions congealed into a film over boiling anger and grief.

Wilson sat in the chair opposite House's desk. House didn't look at him much. Wilson stared without a pause. "We were arguing at the time. You were going through detox..."

House had agreed to get off the Vicodin once and for all, and had gone to pain therapy and began taking two other medications with less potential for toxic side-effects. All-in-all, the combination worked almost as well as the Vicodin.

"And you fell off the wagon."

"Looks like you were never _on_ it. Three months, Wilson. You cheated _three_ months into our relationship. How does a grown-up do that?"

"We had lived together for three months. We had been seeing each other for six months prior to that."

"Are you trying to strengthen your case? 'Cause you're doing a lousy job."

"We were only exclusive for three months. We had agreed on that."

House laughed ruefully. His chest hurt, his eyes hurt from holding back tears, his emotions were tossing him around like a cork on the ocean. "Let me ask you this: Did you sleep with anyone else during that six months?"

Wilson stood straighter. "No. I wanted to be with you." Then realized how pathetic that sounded. Faithful when there was no commitment, cheater when there was.

House did not miss Wilson's contrite look. "And _then_ you cheated. Brilliant. Here's how exclusivity is born - by not cheating. Soon not cheating becomes commitment. You really can't have one without the other."

Wilson stared back. "It was a mistake, House. A bad one." He had left the apartment and gotten shit-faced drunk that night, after seeing House back on the Vicodin and screaming about his right to it. The woman had come onto him. He almost fell onto her bed as though not only drunk but in hopeless agony over House. Everything had gone sluggish and dreamy around him. Like a fantasy. He couldn't even remember the sex. And the hang-over had done little to quell his stinging conscience once he stumbled home.

House sorted through stacked up paper-work. "So we were fighting. So what? It comes with the territory."

"Does you slowly killing yourself on Vicodin come with the territory?" Wilson was desperate to establish some kind of solid ground underlying his actions. It was quicksand.

"You cheated three months in, and then concealed it for almost two years. That's not a mistake, that's just . . _you."_

Wilson stood up. He was whirling in the cesspool his life had suddenly become. House hating him, a new baby to financially provide for, a woman whom he barely knew making noises of wanting to move in. No chance in hell of that last one. And most of all, not only was his romantic relationship with House over, the friendship appeared to be, too.

"I'll pack my things." He would let House keep their new, more spacious apartment. House needed the ground floor arrangement. It was a panacea, Wilson understood, that he was attempting. It wasn't nearly enough.

House stared after him. "Call me when you're gone." He felt a dark, bottomless hole open in his chest, watching Wilson walk away. "Leave a message."

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Wilson stopped at a local liquor store to filch boxes from its rear entrance, then drove home and began packing.

House rode his motorcycle at a foolhardy speed, then stopped for a rest-break, popping Vicodin for his burning thigh, and failing to prevent the sobbing that erupted from his throat. He spent the night in a hotel miles from Princeton.

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Part II asap


	2. Chapter 2

One Small Consequence

Part IIf

By GeeLady

**Time-line:** Post-season 6

**Summary: **Once is usually enough when cheating love. Relationship angst and a few other things, too.

**Pairing:** House/Wilson

**Rating:** NC-17, Adult, +18, Mature. Language. Sexual situations. SLASH.

**Disclaimer:** The guy with cane doesn't belong to me, yadda, yadda...

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Wilson left nothing behind when he moved out.

The apartment key was sitting on the kitchen counter beside a small white envelope. On the front was written _House_. It was sealed. Wilson had probably licked it with his long, wet tongue. The images of the pink appendage blossomed a sudden urge for a stress relieving bit of sex. That certainly wasn't going to happen.

House left the the missive unopened. He knew what it would say - Wilson would have written _I'm sorry_ five different ways and _please forgive me_ and _can't we talk_...

As predictable as church on Sunday.

House shook the hurt off his back and threw his coat on the couch. No Wilson there to scold him about hanging it up. His ex' was such a fuddy-duddy when it came to furniture. The place was all his now and House felt a kind of freedom walking through the quiet rooms alone.

He could turn on whatever music he liked, eat whenever and what-ever he wished and no Wilson to nag him about his Vicodin use and drinking habits.

A soapy hand every shower and Dial-a-Blow-Job was just a call away, too. No Wilson to interfere. His services no longer required.

House tossed his over-shirt on the bed and opened his closet to see what sort of ironed PJ's still dangled on Wilson's hangers of domestic obsession. Who irons pajama's? Shoving aside a few groups of shirts, House found one of Wilson's forgotten jackets. It was just a wind-breaker. He yanked it from the holder and tossed it into the corner waste-basket, knocking the overly-gay wicker affair onto its side.

Blue striped Pj's would do just fine. Some bourbon, tunes and a fine evening lay just a few minutes ahead. House stripped and slip the softened jam's over his bare skin. They smelled faintly of "spring fresh" Downy. Wilson did like his fruity odors.

No matter where he glanced in his bedroom, the corner of House's eye kept coming back around to the rumpled jacket heaped in the tipped over waste-basket. He supposed he ought to make some attempt to return it. The jacket hadn't screwed someone else, after all, just its owner.

House grabbed a coat hanger and almost savagely slung the floppy item over the wire, thrusting it angrily back onto the rack, deep in his closet so he would not have to look at it every time he opened the door. He'd get it back to Wilson when he was damn good and ready. Let the bastard puzzle over his missing coat for a while.

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"House."

Cuddy's voice, grating as ever. "You bellowed?" He answered but not pausing on his way to the elevators.

"Halt."

House kept walking, pressing the elevator's Up button just as Cuddy thrust a stack of folders into his hand. "Clinic."

"No, actually, this is the elevator." He pointed his cane back the way she had come. "The clinic's down that way."

Cuddy indulged his tiny rebellion with just a smidgen more patience than usual.

"You're being nice." House said with unmistakable suspicion. "That means you're feeling sorry for me." He turned his eyes away from any more coming annoying looks of sympathy. "No need. Wilson and I are over. Besides, it was just an experiment anyway."

"An experiment?"

"Yup. I was just trying _it_ on for size. But, wrong size -extra-small. And – can you believe it? - it turns out the Warrantee was a _fake_. A hand-me-down. I was it's fifth customer. Or maybe sixth, eighth, fifteenth maybe. Not really sure - hard to tell in the dark-"

"-House."

House fell silent.

Cuddy handed him the folders. "I'm sorry." She said. "And I'm not talking about whatever is the _it_, I'm talking about the two of you."

House nodded. He hated that everyone now not only knew that he and Wilson had been an item (a huge wellspring for gossip), but that they were now broken up; an ex-item (the Plainsboro Big Bang for generating gossip that endured time and space).

"Clinic." Cuddy repeated. "First file is a mother and child. The kid is really sick. Might be interesting." She said the last word in a rising sing-song.

"Not as interesting as would be purulent blisters all over Wilson's scrotum." In juvenile defiance, House shuffled the folders like cards.

Cuddy rolled her eyes, adding in a stern alto "_Now_."

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House closed the door to Exam Room 2. Without looking at the patient, he said, "What can I do for you on this perfectly miserable day?"

"I think I'm a turkey."

House sat down on a wheeled stool, regarding his balding patient for a few seconds. "Looks like I won't be needing this." He closed the folder and tossed it on the counter. "You're experiencing the urge to gobble-gobble-gobble?"

The thin fellow with the sleepy eyes shook his head vigorously. "No, no, I mean I started acting like a turkey, a real turkey, and I don't know why."

House began and rubbing his already weary eyes. "In what way - and please take this in the mocking manner in which it is intended - are you acting like a turkey? Cavings for corn meal? Do you get nervous around Thanksgiving? Dewlaps get you horny? - What?"

"No. See, whenever I do this," The skinny man blinkedvery slowly and along with the blink, his chin suddenly thrust forward sharply, as though pulled out by an invisible finger. "See? My head jerks forward when I blink, just like a turkey." He demonstrated it a few more times. House had to admit, he really did look like a head-bobbing turkey when he did that.

"And when did this sudden propensity for turkey jerking begin?"

"About two or three months ago. I can't stop it."

House scratched his chin. He took out his pad a scribbled. "I'm going to make an appointment for you to come back a week from today and see our resident neurologist. In the mean-time, steer clear of Pilgrims and Christmas-time."

"That's it? Aren't you going to examine me? Don't you know what's wrong?"

House shrugged. "It could be Meige's Syndrome or maybe boredom. But probably it's just insanity. Neurologist's name is Foreman. Tell him I sent you."

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Exam room one held a very round woman with a lot of piled up blue-dyed hair. She tapped very fat fingers heavy with gold and silver on the exam bed's fresh strip of paper.

"Who are you?" She asked.

"Oh! I know this game." House held his left hand over his eyes. "What has an MD license, two specialties, and a stethoscope?" He glared at her. "I'm your _doctor_, but if that doesn't satisfy, I'm sure I can scare you up a janitor."

The woman pursed ruby-red lips at her physician's thick sarcasm. "I mean, I was expecting a woman."

"So was my mother. Guess you both lost." House sighed and skimmed her chart. "What's the problem?"

"My finger-tips get cold when it's hot out."

With a heavy frown, House stuck his face in her chart again, muttering. "You're forty-seven, single, and run a Greek kitchen." He took her left hand, then her right one, examining both briefly. Letting them drop, "Lift your blouse." He ordered.

She looked startled. "What? There's nothing wrong with my heart, it's my fingers."

House took a gander at her triple-D's trying to bust their way out of her red-silk button-up. "Who says I was going to examine your _heart_?" He placed his stethoscope's ear-pieces in his ears and waited. "Come on, Marge, strip. I promise I won't peek."

She huffed and lifted her blouse. Many rolls of bleached fat, lined with vertical stretch marks greeted him. House placed the stethoscope just above her sternum and listened. "Heart's strong."

"What does that have to do-?"

"- A dicky heart can mean bad circulation, which can cause edema - swelling. In the heat it can cause more. Cuts off the circulation to your extremities. Hence - cold fingers." House placed the device on her back. "Take deep breaths."

She complied and after a moment, he draped the instrument around his neck once more. "Lungs are clear." House sat down again. "Do you eat a lot of sweets? Fats? Pizza? Fried chicken washed down with Crisco milkshakes?"

"You're rude."

"And you're afflicted with a serious case of adipose tissue."

"Adipos-?"

"Fat. You're a hundred pounds overweight at least. I'd say a good third of that was gained very recently and very rapidly."

"That's absolutely untrue. I have always been this size."

With raised eyebrows, "You mean even since you were _zero_? Our little guessing game, remember? The answer was: _I'm_ the doctor. Trust me, it's new fat - judging by the stretch marks. Old stretch marks are white, new ones are pink or red, and yours are as red as your street-walker lip-stick.

"Your fingers turn cold in the heat because you're not only fat, but have gotten _fatter_. Despite the weight gain, your man-sized rings still didn't pinch that much; not when it was a normal day. But on a really hot day, or in a hot _kitchen,_ your body's trying to retain the extra water loss caused by sweating. It's doing that by holding onto what water is in your system and storing it in the cells, including your fat cells."

"What do I do?"

House gathered up the chart. "Lose weight or buy a hack saw."

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House entered Exam room Four to see his eighth patient of the morning. Only an hour to go and he was free from the tedium of idiots. This was the sick kid patient.

"It's been two hours."

House rolled his eyes for his audience of two. "Oh - God - I _know_!"House remarked. When he looked closer, his day became longer and way, way worse than it ever could have been had he just stuck with fat-ring lady or anyone else.

Sitting on the exam table, clutching her wailing, dark haired son with the sharp nose, was the other half of the Wilson Cheating Duo. House didn't say a word. He turned on his heel, tossed the chart to a random nurse who happened to be near-by and stormed into Cuddy's office. "Is this some kind of joke?"

Cuddy was on the phone. She rapidly concluded her call when House stormed to her desk and leaned over.

"God in heaven knows how I hate to ask but He has cursed me with you, and so - _What_ is some kind of joke?"

House thrust an angry cane back towards the clinic entrance, just visible through her glass doors. "Giving me _her_ for a patient."

Cuddy tossed her thick shock of dark, fashionable hair. "_Who_ her?"

House settled down a bit, since it seemed Cuddy really didn't know. "Never mind. Get McDonnell to see her."

Cuddy followed House out of her office and to the elevators. "Are you talking about the first case I assigned you? Her child is really sick."

"There's lots of other real doctors."

"But not the best."

"Oh, stop ass-kissing - at least when we're _here_. She's - " House brought his tumbling emotions under control. "Just get someone else."

Cuddy suddenly put one and one and one-point-five together. "You mean, she's the one who-? House, I didn't _know_ that. She's here legitimately. She needs medical assistance."

"Send another doctor. Send Wilson - he's already _known_ her."

Cuddy would have. She almost did. But then she wondered if it might be better if House was forced to deal with what had happened between himself and Wilson. Even indirectly, by dealing with the cause of their rather, according to rumors, very sudden and nasty break-up. "I've assigned _you_ as her attending. This kid is _sick."_

House scratched his forehead. "I didn't think even you would be that cruel."

Cuddy studied his expression. Either he had meant that for real, or he was trying to guilt her into backing down. Either way, Cuddy thought it was a good way for House to start processing his own emotions surrounding Wilson and his 'nteenth infidelity. These two men still had to work together. House couldn't start refusing patients simply because Wilson knew them, whether in the biblically sense or not.

"I'm not trying to be cruel. I'm telling you to do your hours."

"Why me? There are plenty of other doctors here."

"They are not on clinic duty. _You_ are. Do your job." Cuddy watched him gimp back through the clinic entrance and to the Exam room where, she assumed, the female and her baby in question waited. Maybe it was a trifle cruel, but she couldn't have her doctor's personal relationship problems getting in the way of patient treatment. Once emotions were allowed to rule, objective patient treatment is put in danger.

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House sat on the short wheeled stool and pursued the baby chart of Wilson's newest tail.

The baby with the Wilson clan features in question continued to fuss. "Three emergency rooms and four different doctors." House said. He looked at her or at her kid as little as possible.

She stared back unashamed and unperturbed. It was creepy. _Nice catch Willie'. _"I didn't choose for this to happen, you know." She said.

Wishing to avoid continuing at all costs any conversation that started with precisely those words, House kept his questions strictly medical. "When did his symptoms start? Exactly?"

"About three or four months ago. He'd get a sniffle and it'd stick around for days and days, or a fever but it'd go away after a few days. Weird stuff, like a rash I've never seen before, and not from his diaper. None of the usual ointments worked. But then the rash would simply fade away. Then another fever or a cough, or he'd simply cry and cry for no reason."

House nodded. Chart read. Questions put to mother. Now he _had_ to look at the kid. He was the doctor, and thanks to Cuddy's oddly-timed insistence that he serve his clinic duty no matter how much it hurt, Wilson's bastard was now his patient. No choice.

"Sit him on the table."

She, whose name House had learned was Janele Nordrick, did as she was instructed.

House palpated the child's abdomen, listened to his heart and lungs, checked his baby-knee reflexes, all the while the kid put up a soft, whimpering fuss, which never changed no matter which way House poked and prodded him.

"No _present_ stomach discomfort." Fevers that came and went, rashes, the constant crying - it was a little weird.

"Heart and lungs are fine. Reflexes are good." House lifted the child's arms and checked the hairless and pudgy pits. No lumps. His eyes were clear.

If Janele was correct about the fever and rashes, it could simply be sporadic colic caused by a food allergy. That would explain the rash and perhaps the fever if the reaction was severe enough.

But all the other doctors had investigated those possibilities and prescribed things for their relief. Nothing had succeeded for long.

"His name is Barry, by the way." She remarked.

House knew she was waiting for a response. He wrote in the chart, tore a sheet from his pocket note-pad, wrote a few words on it and scrawled a signature. He didn't care to hear the kids name. It wasn't his need or desire. But if she wanted a response, she would get it. "I didn't ask."

To her credit she kept up a good performance, if thats what it was, of being un-offended. "It's in his chart, Doctor House. Or may I call you Greg?"

House wanted to kick the bed out from under her. "You may call me Doctor House." He answered as coldly smooth as he could manage without also adding _Slut! _

"Let's get one more thing straight." House closed the chart and handed her the slip of paper. "You slept with my partner and had his baby. Hence, you are now free to sleep with him all you want. Hell, sing him dirty lullaby's if it gives you kicks. But don't ever presume that you and I are going to be friends just because we both know Wilson snickers when he comes."

House stood and nodded to the paper in her hand. "Check in with the nurse on your way out. That's an appointment for a follow-up in a week. I want to admit your son for more tests. Don't be late."

-

-

Wilson swallowed the dryness in his throat and pushed House's office door open. He held a chart in his hand. "Need a consult." When House just stared, he added, "Is that okay?"

House wanted to tell him to go take a flying fuck, except Wilson had already done that. Feeling idiotic for maintaining a snit that wasn't accomplishing anything but wearing him out, House nodded.

Wilson tried to work up enough spit to speak. He seated himself gingerly on the guest chair opposite House. He looked tired. "I hear my -" His tongue felt like it was made of paper. "- that Janele visited today."

Not a consult after all. House had suspected as much and simply nodded. "Kid's sick, which I can only assume you already knew."

Wilson played with his hair. "She called me." Then blurted, "She wants to move in with me."

House nodded. "So have you picked out a color for the baby room?"

"What? - No! I don't want her in my life. I want- "

"-Shut-up." House warned. Then, carefully and calmly, "She's going to take you for half of everything, you know. At least if she moves in, you'll get to see what she does with it."

Wilson not only looked white with guilt, he was slumped over with a hump of misery on his back that would turn Quasimodo green. "I am so screwed." He laughed humorlessly.

House couldn't help himself. "Wouldn't be the first time." Then to try and ease both their souls, "Some thing's weird about that kid. He really is sick."

Wilson gratefully grasped at the peace stick. "Any idea with what?" The kid was his son, after-all.

Shaking his head, House leaned back, more relaxed. Maybe something of the friendship might be salvaged. It wasn't a far-reaching stretch. "Nothing adds up. So far."

"You'll figure it out. You're the best." _Lame, Wilson. So lame._

House didn't rise to the excruciatingly pronounced flattery. "Yeah. I'm wonderful." The implication was conspicuous. If Wilson thought him so great, why had he felt the need to fuck a perfect stranger?

Wilson wanted to fix it all, somehow. He couldn't think of a way. He was sorry, so unbelievably sorry, to have messed up this badly. He couldn't recall even liking the woman enough to go anywhere with her, never mind to bed. But he had been so drunk at the time, his own motivations obscured in a murky pool of alcohol-pickled memories.

All he knew was he wanted House back so much it hurt. "I never meant for this to happen, you know." He looked at House, searching for some glimmer of forgiveness. That's all he had left to shoot for; House's forgiveness. "I want to fix it."

House bit his lip. "That's what she said. The first part."

Wilson swallowed pride, fear and foundering hope. "Will you _please_ let me fix this?"

House didn't want to talk about it anymore. Wilson had called and written notes and sent expensive bottles of Scotch as a peace offering. But the one thing House needed from him Wilson could never repair.

"You slept with her three months into our relationship. You screwed her because we had an argument. You made a baby with a bar pick-up because _I _fell off the Vicodin wagon; because _I_ had failed you."

House paused, tapping his fingers on the table. He was uncomfortable, too, and hated the vulnerability the whole awful mess had elicited in himself. He hated that, despite the pain, he still wanted Wilson.

"I could fall off again, harder next time." House sighed and stared at his handsome, mournful, marvelous friend who had loved him for a while and then dumped him just like he had all of his other "great loves".

Wilson the philanderer. Yet House really did love this man. But he had to love himself a little, too.

"So next time, if I fuck up even worse - how many strangers will you need to sleep with then?"

XXXXXXX

Part III asap


	3. Chapter 3

One Small Consequence

Part III

By GeeLady

**Time-line:** Post-season 6

**Summary: **Once is usually enough when cheating love. Relationship angst and a few other things, too.

**Pairing:** House/Wilson

**Rating:** NC-17, Adult, +18, Mature. Language. Sexual situations. SLASH.

**Disclaimer:** The guy with cane doesn't belong to me, yadda, yadda...

XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX

"Diarrhea and fever, . . ." Doctor Hadley reported what her boss already knew.

"...but so far, all C and S's are negative. No sign of infection."

House paced back and forth in front of his white board, black marker between his lips, mystery at hand. "It's not anemia, it's not riboflavin deficiency, it's not herpes zoster or any cytolytic disease we can come up with."

"The kid's been here a week." Foreman pointed out unnecessarily. "We are no closer to solving this than when we started."

House pulled the marker from his mouth. "Thank you, Captain Obvious. And we are closer, we've eliminated five or six things it isn't."

Taub shuffled papers restlessly. "That leaves only hundreds."

House snapped. "Shut up. I'm thinking." But several more minutes of slowly gimping back and forth across his worn, gray carpet produced no brilliance. "Damn."

House looked at the clock and tossed his marker on the table. "Lunch time." He left as fast as his leg would let him.

-

-

"Any progress on the kid?"

House cringed at the sound of Cuddy's voice at his back.

In line at the cafeteria, she sneaked on him. She did that often, lately since she'd switched to lower, softer heels. Running after a baby had taken the tilt out of her arches. He would have to figure out a method of detecting her short yet demanding countenance and her sergeant-like bark.

"No. Any progress on the hospital food?" House stabbed his fork in a cold wrinkled slice of French bread and held it up to her nose. "I tell you, what concerned, mothering, hot-boobed administrator would feed their employee _this_?"

Cuddy pushed House's hand away. "So, nothing?"

"Correct. I shall eat nothing. This stuff barely passes as organic. No wonder every around here brown bag's it."

Cuddy followed House to a small table next to a window. Outside, the leaves were falling. The end of the year was around the corner. Soon the snow would make everything colder and more miserable. No Wilson to warm things up and make everything nice. Back to Christmases curled up with Mister Jack Daniels.

House sighed as Cuddy made no bones about invading his privacy, seating herself across from him. "How are things?"

House was tired of this conversation. "My _thing_ is just fine. If you don't believe me, there's a broom closet near my office."

"You know Wilson was drunk when it happened."

House eyed her suspiciously. "I know, but what I don't understand is how you know. Did Willie throw back a few and confess all over your desk?"

"Gross, and, yes - Wilson _told_ me. He's devastated."

"When isn't he? There are three exes who can testify to his wussiness. At least he's still getting some."

Cuddy stared at her slightly dense employee. House was only ever dense in one area; that he had anything to offer anyone in the romantic sense. In that department, he always underestimated himself. "You don't think Wilson and she are - ? House - they're not _together_."

House bit into his sandwich, his eyes only half believing. "I don't see as he has much choice. Wilson might have made a baby, but he's not the type to make tracks. She's got him by his cheating, hairy balls."

"Wilson may have a conscience-"

"-only after-the-fact."

Cuddy only paused long enough to acknowledge House's crack with a sad smile. "-but he's not going to marry her. He doesn't want her. He wants you."

House chewed, felt the heat rising in his neck. Embarrassed at the personal turn the conversation had taken. He wished she would just go away. "Why are you talking to me about this? It's none of your business."

Cuddy sat back. That was true, of course. "I'm making it my business, because I care about you both." She did. "You're both my employees, you both work on the same floor, and you're friends." Still somewhat applicable. "Plus you're both good doctors, you're both hurting and, last but not least, you're both idiots." They were. All of the above. "So I don't see as how I can do anything _other_ than stick my nose in. The functioning of two departments and their ego-bruised Heads are at stake here. I'm in it for the duration. Suck it up."

House swallowed, bristling at her full set of bared caps. Cuddy was hunkered down for the long haul. House hated her nose so close to his but couldn't blame her for being right. "Even if I still do want Wilson, I don't want children. And he's stuck with a kid now. Pampers-ever-after. The end."

"You're being a jerk, you know."

"Jerks usually are."

Cuddy leaned back in her chair, studying him. "So you're telling me you've never lied to Wilson the whole time you were together? Not once? Not even a little white lie to avoid hurting his feelings? Not even a lie about your drinking or pills or what-ever?"

Of course he had. When he'd agreed to get off the pills and onto something less health hazardous, he'd fallen off the wagon more than once. Wilson only knew about the once, and look how he'd reacted. Like a freaking mom over her delinquent son. House admitted he was a delinquent, but Wilson knew that going in. "I never cheated. And I never lie where it counts."

"You never lie where it counts to _you." _She said. "But you lie, House." Cuddy left her plate with its crumbs. "Everybody lies."

-

-

"Where's the mom?" House never used her name.

Foreman poked his head out from behind his newspaper. House had been in an especially sour mood of late and rumor was he and Wilson had been, but now weren't, doing each other. "She went home."

House frowned. Idiot. Who goes home when their baby's in the hospital? "Well, get her back here, I need a more complete medical history from her."

Foreman tossed his paper aside. "We have a complete medical history. The woman's just never been sick. There's nothing to see there."

House poured a coffee and offered the pot to Foreman.

Foreman held out his cup.

House pulled the pot back. "I'm not offering you some coffee, I want you to make fresh."

"Ask Taub."

"Taub is running a sputum test on the kid."

"Making you coffee is no longer in my job description. It wasn't even in the last one."

"You used to make it anyway."

"So?"

"So. I miss my coffee wuss." House added sugar and cream to make the murky liquid palatable. He forced the first burning swallow past his outraged taste buds.

Foreman made a face. "What about the ophthalmologic scan?"

House set the cup down to let it go cold. "Kid's got a very small corneal ulceration."

"That suggests a nutritional deficit."

"Yes." House slumped down on his padded chair at the end of the table and scratched his head. "But which kind? Is this allergy? Scratch test was negative. We're pumping him full of vitamins, minerals, everything a bastard kid needs to grow into a bigger bastard."

"Celiac disease?"

"He hasn't been losing any weight. No seizures." House tapped his cane on the floor, an irritating habit whenever House was stumped. "We're spending so much time looking for exotic, but it might not be anything complicated at all. It could be something simple. So simple, we're overlooking it."

"Lesions in his mouth." Foreman muttered. "Does the mom smoke?"

House didn't know. "What's the woman's number."

Foreman cracked the chart. "Disconnected. No cell phone."

"No cell phone? Who doesn't have a cell phone in New Jersey?"

"Apparently the next ex-Missus Wilson."

House threw him an angry glance. "They're not getting married." She had no phone, so the only way to contact her was through . . .

_"This is Doctor James Wilson. Leave a message and I'll get back to you as soon as I can - B-E-E-P"_

"Wilson. Pick up." House waited in silence until the second beep, then hung up. He grabbed his leather jacket and rode to Wilson's. It was his day off, he should be home, though it would have been simpler just to talk to him on the phone.

-

-

"Thank you. I was just dropping by."

Wilson poured her a coffee, set the cream and sugar containers near her and seated himself opposite his guest at his kitchen table.

Janele Nordrick had been "just dropping by" a lot. No doubt to size up the numbers in his bank account via where he lived and the expensive things in which he indulged. Wilson was glad he'd decided against the large screen TV. No point in encouraging her. He would help her raise his son, of course, and hoped they could get onto the topic of how much and so forth. If she pissed around any more, he'd have to get his lawyer involved.

Wilson sighed and tried to be pleasant to the woman he had slept with once. "Why didn't you use protection?"

"You said you had a condom." Janele tossed her head of loosely curled brown hair away from her face. "Must have broke."

Wilson nodded, although he couldn't recall putting one on. He couldn't recall most of that regretful night. "How's Barry?"

"Getting tests." Janele seemed reluctant to discuss the particulars of her son's health. "I'm going to need help, you know. I mean, raising a kid is expensive."

Having a kid, especially an un-planned one, is expensive in ways other than monetarily. "We need to discuss that. Do you want to see a lawyer together, or would you be happy with a verbal agreement?"

Janele considered for a moment. "Verbal's fine for now."

"Really?" Wilson was a little surprised. "I mean, I wouldn't renege, but you hardly know me." Just the once.

"You have a trustworthy face. I think you're the type who'd want to care for his son."

Wilson nodded. Yes. He always wanted to care for things. He rarely ever did though. Except House. With House, he wanted to succeed. Really and truly care and show it in the right ways. Problem was, House made caring an exhausting endeavor. Even when you really loved him, really cared, he made you want to leave equally as much. Everything was black and white with him. Even love.

"It would be better, of course, if Barry had a mom _and_ a dad."

Wilson had deflected each of Janele's previous hints to take their relationship further. "I don't think I can pursue that . . .aspect of things."

Janele frowned. "You may not remember much, but we had a good time that night. We talked and laughed and had fun. We _could_ be perfect for each other. Perfect for Barry, too."

"I just can't."

She refused to be put off with less than a detailed explanation. "Look, I'm a realist, I don't expect us to fall in love over-night, but - I mean - what? You're not really gay are you? I mean totally?"

Wilson had been asking himself that question for some time. Was he? Actually, without a doubt plain old AC? Was he bisexual? He knew he still liked women. He also knew when he had been with House, he'd wanted no one else. In fact, he'd never even thought about sex with anyone else, or had caught himself fantasizing about a woman. Or a man, for that matter. House had been enough.

Wilson vowed to never again knock back more than two drinks whenever he was alone. Especially alone and feeling sorry for himself. Suddenly he was very depressed and wanted her to leave. "Actually . . ."

Janele looked at him. "So you and that other doctor..?"

"Yes."

"Oh. He's an ass. He insulted me, you know? Like you and me sleeping together was all my fault."

Wilson perked up a little at that. "Oh?"

But Janele remembered something from their drunken date and switched direction. "But weren't you married a few times?"

Wilson didn't want to go into it. "Look, just draw up a number you think you'll need, and if it's reasonable, we won't have to bring in any lawyers. But I'm really tired now."

Janele stiffened at the subtle but clear dismissal. Without warning, he was booting her. She placed her half empty cup down and gathered up her purse. "I want the contract between us, though, written up by a lawyer."

"Sure."

Just as Wilson opened his door to let the black cloud of his life out into the sunshine, House was standing there with his cane raised, about to knock.

Janele looked at him for a second, then brushed passed. "Excuse me."

House stood aside, watching for a moment as she climbed into her small Ford and drove away faster than she needed to.

House nodded his head at Wilson. "Exchanging pleasantries?"

Wilson felt nauseous. Why the hell can't his life ever stay simple? "Not really." Wilson stepped aside for House to enter. His stomach flip-flopped a bread-crumb of hope. "Why are you here?"

"I need to ask you about her."

Wilson lead House into the kitchen and replaced Janele's cup with a clean one for House, pouring him a cup without waiting for him to ask. "Why didn't you ask her?"

"She'd probably lie."

Right. Wilson sat down, leaving his own cup empty. "We were talking money." Wilson said by way of explanation, editing out the relationship bits - wholly one-sided on Janele's part.

House looked into his coffee. "With three alimonys and now her, you'll never own a house, you know."

Wilson stared at him, remembering the things he had owned. One in particular. "You're the only house I want."

House rolled his eyes, sitting back, increasing the distance between them. "Drop the romancing. We're done."

His heart suddenly aching all over again, Wilson crossed his arms. With enough pressure on his chest, he managed to keep a cool exterior. "What do you want to know? About her?"

"Does she smoke and how much?"

Wilson tried to remember. He couldn't remember if she had lit up or not. Not in the bar, which was about all he could recall of his life-kicked-out-from-under-him one night stand. "I don't think so. I've never smelled it on her."

House nodded. Then he said, more gently than was his usual way "The kid might have cancer."

Barry, his son, might be dying? "What kind?" Wilson's heart was beating hard, a different ache this time.

"Don't know yet." House stared into his cup. Then looked at Wilson from lowered brows. "Do you want to do the biopsy?" House gave his friend a few seconds to think about it. "I can get someone else. Peters is on-call-"

"-No." Wilson shook his head. "No, I'll do it."

"You sure?"

Wilson hated it when House was so nice. It made everything that much harder. "Yeah, I'm sure. Do you need me to come in?"

House shook his head and stood, heavily leaning on his cane. "Tomorrow's soon enough."

Wilson watched him walk to the door. His limp was pronounced. "How bad is your leg?"

House was halfway out the door before he decided to answer. No point in being a bitch. Staring directly into Wilson's, until his wary browns blinked with apprehension, as though House were ready to fly a fresh barb of anger right between them, House instead softened his eyes, their blue simply the color of a friend.

Wilson was probably hurting just as much as he was. House was thankful that at least he didn't have to contend with guilt too. "It isn't as bad as this."

Wilson grabbed his sleeve, then quickly let go. "House-"

House didn't keep walking but he didn't turn around either.

"Please, can we talk about this? It may be done for you, but it isn't for me."

House then did turn around. "What changed?"

Wilson's eyes darted back and forth, trying to figure out which what. "You're going to have to-"

"-Somewhere, between day one and ninety, you suddenly needed an ass besides mine."

Wilson remembered all those years of going from one girlfriend to the next, over-lapping them sometimes, so he wouldn't have to be alone. Cheating on his wives had both happened within the first year. He had never been able to explain to himself why. Only his first powerful feelings of love for each of them had begun to dissipate in the first few months. The difference was, his feelings for House had grown stronger, more intense, deeper. Some days almost desperate.

Escape. He had wanted to escape the atmosphere of stale feelings that permeated each of his marriages. Love that had faded for reasons he couldn't quite define. He needed the feeling back. And a few nights of excitement with a secret bed-mate had brought back at least the lust for a few days.

Except none of that had occurred this time. He had gone out and gotten drunk with frustration over House's pill abuse. All he remembered when storming out that night was wanting to enclose House in his arms and never let him slip away. But House was the free-est spirit he had ever met. House could not be contained, his was a greased soul. Mostly, Wilson was terrified of losing him. After seventeen years, he could almost not bear the thought for a moment.

Wilson had no explanation beyond his own fears and self-pitying need. "That didn't happen this time. I never went looking for anyone." He added quietly. "For the first time in my life, I didn't want anyone else."

House looked to the cars parked along Wilson's stylish neighborhood road-way. Trees lush and boulevards trimmed. Everything neat and crisp and rich looking.

"When we were friends, I used to think you ran away from problems between us because I was a jerk. But I was still the same jerk when we started sleeping together. Either you didn't love me when we were together - so the cheating at least makes some sense, or you did love me yet you still cheated. Anyway you look at it, this is all you."

"So you can't forgive me, or you _won't_?"

"Sure I can if I choose to, only I choose not to because you're still broken. Maybe you didn't go looking, but something inside told you go for it when the opportunity presented, so I can't afford to take any chances. I can't go through this _crap_ anymore."

Wilson felt a faint dash of hope. Was House giving him an opening to try again, some day if..."If I figure out why, if I go to counseling and work whatever this miserable shit is out, can we at least try again?"

House put on his helmet. He half turned back, like he did but didn't want to look at Wilson. Sighed and pursed his lips. "Go get your counseling," House still sounded grim, as though he held out little hope for a change. "And I'll think about it."

-

-

The tinny ringing was stopped by a professional woman's voice.

"This is Greg House." He said into the phone.

Immediately her tone turned sultry and accommodating. From across the city she purred. "Doctor! How _nice _to hear from you. It's been too long."

"Has it?"

But she was a business woman and stuck to important matters. "Let me see,..." She was probably checking her books. Everything in ink on paper. Things that could be burned if very necessary. "Oh - Paula. You like them dark and young. Paula's no longer with us..." The woman spoke as though Paula had died or moved to China. "But we have a lovely brunette about the same age, a little taller. Prices are higher now, but believe me, she's worth it. Now-"

"-Would her name happen to be David or Bruce?"

"Pardon?"

"If her name is Dave, Bruce or something male, send _him_ along."

Just the most infinitesimal pause from the other end of the line. "Oh - certainly. We have several very handsome gentleman who would be delighted to drop by- "

_Delighted._ Like House was selling his piano. "Tall with dark hair." House spoke to order. "Brown eyes. Youngish and _quiet."_

"Of course. Discretion is our watchword."

"I want him until three AM, then I want him gone without waking me. And make sure he understands not to talk to me."

"Hazel eyes but I think you'll be pleased. His name is Jason. Shall we say one hour?"

"Fine." House hung up.

-

-

Jason made not a single noise, other than puffing and groaning into his ear as he obligingly fucked House in every position for which he had been trained.

House was fine with the silence. He could sink into Jason's firm muscles and squeeze his cheeks around his young, hard cock as it slammed into him over and over, and forget about how much life sucked. At least for one night.

By morning, the fine young specimen had vanished.

House squinted at the morning beams through his bedroom blinds. The air was stale and smelled of sex. Struggling off the mattress, his leg cramped, but too badly, and he was a little sore in his rear quarters but nothing to worry about. Jason was hung rather well and he wasn't used to inviting in someone of that caliber.

House stepped into the shower. He felt better. At least he thought he did. Less stressed. Not so hollow, though six hundred dollars poorer. Forgetting was never cheap.

A few more thousand bucks, and he'd be as good as new.

XXXXXXXX


	4. Chapter 4

One Small Consequence

Part IV

By GeeLady

**Time-line:** Post-season 6

**Summary: **Once is usually enough when cheating love. Relationship angst and a few other things, too.

**Pairing:** House/Wilson

**Rating:** NC-17, Adult, +18, Mature. Language. Sexual situations. SLASH.

**Disclaimer:** The guy with cane doesn't belong to me, yadda, yadda...

XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX

"Wilson called." Taub handed House a small slip of paper. On it was written: _"Re: Janele. Call me."_

While resting a sarcastic fist over his heart. "Gets me right there." House muttered.

Taub said, "And, as socially awkward as this is to repeat, there was a personal message he didn't want written down, and I quote: _"I still love you." _- end quote." Taub shook his head at House. "So he screwed up? It was _one_ time - at least he's trying."

"Said one philanderer of the other." House ad libbed.

Taub nodded, expecting nothing else but an insult. His own list of affairs behind his good wife's back rivaled the phone book and since House had dug up that juicy tidbit and dangled it in front of his nose, he'd pretty much given up that extracurricular activity.

Still, _Wilson_ had never done anything to him. "Wilson had a one night affair when, according to him, he was out of his mind. How many other younger, better looking, much, much sweeter guys are you likely to meet who'll put up with _your_ level of crap?" Taub shoved open the door between his boss's office and the conference room with a shove of his shoulder, adding - "Personally, I don't see what he sees in you, but if you let _this_ one go, House, you're an idiot."

House shouted after him. "I'm the guy who can _fire_ you, you know."

-

-

"You could have just paged me." Janele said.

House looked at her briefly. Having tracked down his female nemesis, he then addressed the people at the next table. "You would have ignored it."

" - No I woul-"

"-Yes, you would have." House didn't care to argue. Janele was a barnacle on his life and he was anxious to diagnose her kid - her and Wilson's - kid, as quickly as possible. Because it was Wilson's kid, he'd decided to actually work hard to do so. "I need a sample of your blood."

"What for?" Janele Nordrick, snacking on muffins and coffee, spoke through the crumbs.

"To check for genetic markers."

"There aren't any. No one in my family's ever been sick."

House was rapidly losing the modicum of patience he possessed. "Unless you were all born on Krypton, there'll be genetic markers."

"We need to discuss this with Wilson."

Now _that_ was weird. "What for? I already know the things wrong with _Wilson_ - NASA's still compiling the volumes. Your son might have a rare genetic disorder. We need to check for markers to confirm. Hence we need _your_ blood."

"What disorder?"

House stomped his cane on the floor, it made a loud crack!, causing most conversations nearby to halt, and many heads to turn. The cafeteria was suddenly a lot quieter. _All the better to hear us and gossip some more around the nursing stations._ "Congratulations." House patronized. "You've made yourself a spectacle."

"You have my entire family history in your computer already. You're the one-"

"I'm the doctor trying to convince an idiot that her son could be gravely ill. You're arguing with your son's attending, that makes you the spectacle _and_ the idiot."

"Why don't you go stuff your head in a-"

House spun on her and stomped away. "Can't. He's already spoken for."

-

-

With as great a force as his poor cane could withstand, House pushed open the conference room door. It nearly swung one-eighty and hit the wall. "No blood sample." He announced to his team.

Foreman looked at him like he was nuts. House didn't fail to notice. "You can stop staring at me like it's my fault." House tossed an arm in the general direction from which he'd come. "She's a moron. Refuses to cooperate."

Hadley frowned along with Foreman. "That doesn't make sense."

House was doing his own puzzling. "Wilson sure can pick 'em." He nodded to Taub. "Anything in the history?"

"We already checked that, no."

"You're not reading it right."

"I opened it and read every word," Taub made parallel chopping motions with his hands, "one after the other. She has an unremarkable but remarkably healthy family history. Not so much as a case of Type Two Diabetes."

House looked at Foreman. "Enlighten our shortest and most patronizing associate."

Foreman obliged. "House means did you read between the lines?"

Taub looked back and forth between his boss and his supervisor. "Why not just use an Ouija board?"

"There can be indications, Taub (House pronounced it "_tub")_, of something else going on in a family of man besides rosy cheeks and church every Sunday. There could be trends."

Taub refused to be baited. "Fashion? Hats? The only trend is there are no genetic or otherwise acquired illnesses in this woman or her family."

"Not the family we know of." Hadley said.

House looked at her, somewhat placated. "Thank you for _not_ being nearly as vacant as Taub." He pronounced it "toob". House nodded at her. "It was your idea, see who else you can track down. Aunts, uncles, cousins, bastard relations as a result of cheap, one-night stands - the whole Krypton Klan."

Hadley decided to ignore the krypton part, and gestured to his office phone. "Can I use-?"

"No." House looked toward his office also. "I've got porn to download."

This is going cost me a lot of minutes." Hadley grumbled. Ever since Cuddy had removed his second conference room line to cut costs, the team had been arguing over phone minutes.

House shook her worry off as though it were a fly. "As much as a job?"

-

-

House opened Wilson's door and walked in without an invitation. "Your girlfriend refuses to give us a blood sample."

Wilson threw his pen down, temporarily abandoning his endlessly reproducing mounds of paper-work. "She's _not_ my girlfriend."

"Fine. Your _broad-mare_ refuses to give us a blood sample."

Already used to House's colorful names for Janele, "No doubt you asked in accord with your usual good nature. What do you want me to do about it?"

"I want you to call her up and use the same sweet words you did to get her to give it up, so she'll give this up."

"What makes you think she'll listen to me? I stupidly, drunkenly and regretfully made a baby with her. I didn't make a pact, or even a friend."

House dropped the comedy routine. "Tell her the kid could die."

Wilson paled. "_Is_ he dying?"

"No, but if you scare her, she might give us the sample."

"Terrify her into giving you what you want?" Wilson shook his head. "That's your patient relations method, not mine."

House sighed. "I could always subpoena the blood sample used to confirm that the wee whelp is yours. That'll take about two weeks, if I get a judge who doesn't hate me. _That_ will take about three weeks."

Wilson understood the very subtle blackmail coming at him from his former lover. "I see. Help you or watch as you do nothing while my son gets worse. You're a miserable man sometimes, House."

House nodded. "Right. Which one of us had to talk you into helping me help your son?"

Wilson ignored that and bent his head over his work. "I'll talk to her over lunch. Is that soon enough?"

House nodded. When he didn't get up right away and make a retreat, Wilson dropped his pen again. "More insults, or did you want something else?"

House stared out the window to the large double balcony they shared, which was about the only thing they did share anymore. "How's the counseling?"

Wilson was mildly surprised and secretly glad that House was interested enough to ask. It's unlikely he'd ask about it at all if he didn't give a damn whether the therapy was working or not. And the only reason he would care if it was working was that he wasn't just thinking about getting back together, he was _seriously_ thinking about it.

Wilson kept his own hope in check, though, because with House you never knew. "I'm working through some things. Apparently, I'm terrified to be alone, so I cheat to trick my lover into wanting to leave me first. Therefore I end up alone because I'm afraid of being alone."

House frowned, trying to get his head around it. "How do you even process that?"

Wilson shrugged.

"And what does your pretty therapist suggest you do to fix this circular pathetic-ness?"

"How do you know it's a woman?"

"I didn't. But, I mean, you're _Wilson _so, you know - I extrapolated."

"She thinks I ought to come over and make you a lasagna dinner, some beer, rent a porno and screw your brains out until you forgive me."

"She must have got that from the When Cheater's Get Caught - Therapist's Edition."

Wilson shrugged his shoulders again. "You want a fragrant, greaseless, easy to apply fix-it? I don't have one yet. All I am sure about is when I have figured it out, if you still haven't forgiven me, implementing new behaviors aren't going to make any difference."

"I said I'd think about it."

"And I said I'd go to therapy. Ball's still in your court."

House stood. "You'll talk to Camilla?"

Ignoring House's ever more inventive alternate moniker's for his penis's latest mistake, "I said I would, and I will." Wilson re-affirmed.

House nodded in a manner that was, surprisingly, almost nice.

Wilson watched him go with a lump in his throat. But that tiny nod said there was still hope.

-

-

Wilson found her outside, sneaking a secret cigarette. She was not a bit pleased with her son's attending.

"I don't want that House," she said it as though the word was actually _louse_, "touching me. He's a jerk. Bad enough he's treating my son, now he wants to snoop into my private business? He needs my son's blood, not mine. _I'm_ healthy."

"First of all, he's the best there is to help Barry. All he needs is one small vial of blood so he can rule out a few suspected genetic disorders. It won't hurt you in any way."

"It hurts me that you had a child with me, and won't even take proper responsibility for him."

Just like a woman, Wilson thought. Change the subject, twist it around until it's an entirely different conversation. "I'm talking about our son's life."

"So am I."

"I'm going to help you raise him. I meant that."

"Raise him by cutting me a cheque once a month, sure, but really _raise_ him? Be there for his first day of school? Teach him to catch, or play little league? Be there when he kisses his first girl? _That's_ what raising a child is all about - not just the money."

Wilson felt the weight of the woman, and her son, and House, and his own conscience, on his shoulders. Exhausting. Everything - her, the child, the break-up, was draining him dry. He'd never felt so tired in all his life. "I can't be that much a part of his life."

"_Won't_ be, you mean." She challenged. "None of this would be so hard if you'd just agree to try it with us. Try out real fatherhood. You might like it. You might even grow to love it, and love your son."

Wilson felt nauseous. "I . . ." Did he love his son whom he'd known for just a few weeks? He had to admit he didn't. Did he want to help him? Yes. But that's where it ended. That's where it had to end. He wanted to do right by Barry and by Janele, but he loved House and that was never going to change.

"I want to do what's right for you both, especially Barry, but I'm not in love with you, Janele, and I'm positive I never will be." Wilson knew it sounded caddish. It was. "I have to do right by me, too." _And by House._ "I guess all I'll really be to you and Barry is a support cheque. Maybe that's seems unfair, but all I can say is I'm sorry."

She viciously butted out her cigarette on the wooden bench and stood, gathering up her purse and her wounded pride. "Tell what-'is-name - House - he can apply for a court order for the DNA blood. I'm not lifting a finger to help that son-of-a-bitch. In fact, I think I'll pull Barry out of here and take him to Boston General. I know a good doctor there."

She turned her face away. "I'll send you the hospital bill."

Wilson had been defeated. Looks like House was going to be rid of his bothersome case after all, which ought to make him happy. _At least one person is going to have a better day than me._

-

-

House stood up from his desk chair and leaned across at what he remarked was Wilson's impotent attempt of persuasion. "I send you to get her help and instead you shuttle her off to Boston??"

Wilson blinked several times, a little taken back by House's scolding. "I thought you'd be happy? You didn't even want to treat him in the beginning."

"Well I do now."

"Why?"

"Because that kid is sick. And I don't know why, and if I don't know why, do you think those chowder heads at Boston General will figure it out?"

"Why are you so freaked out about this? You've lost other cases before. Usually because you either scream at the parents and call them morons, or hit them. Both, highly unorthodox ways of encouraging cooperation by the way. I wrote a paper on it."

"I can't help it if most people are idiots. I _can_ help that kid."

Wilson stared at his friend's flushed face. "Are you . . ._worried_ about him?" Wilson felt a flash of warmth spreading from his toes to the tips of his hair. "You're - my god! - you are! You're _concerned_, aren't you?" Wilson knew he'd hit the six-foot-two, hardened steel nail that was House on his ego-ed egg-_head_. "You're concerned because Barry is my son."

House turned away. "Please stop before I have to apply my "method". That has nothing to do with it."

He was lying. Wilson was delighted. He wanted to tackle House to the ground and tickle it out of him. He wanted to wrestle him into admitting he wanted Barry here, because he was experiencing an actual, human feeling. Because to House Barry wasn't just another case, he was a mini-Wilson. If they'd been anywhere other than at work, he would have House pinned to the floor already.

Wilson couldn't help himself. "You're so sexy when you're slightly less jerk than average."

House tilted his head at the annoyance that was his ex-boyfriend. "And you're so average all the time. Hurry up." He ordered. "Talk her into keeping him here."

"What'll you give me for it?"

House sat down. "I'll refrain from applying my "method". Now go."

Wilson smiled and went.

-

-

Foreman entered House's office. "Well? What happened with the mother? Are we getting our blood sample?"

House swiveled in his chair. "Nope. Wilson tried twice and just ended up getting his nads juggled. I sent in for the court order. Should be here in about two weeks."

"Two weeks? He'll be dead by then. He has no appetite, his rash is back, he's lethargic. This kid doesn't have two weeks."

House bit back sarcastically, "Yes, I _**did**_ explain all this to the court-house clerk. Her answer was: _Two. Weeks."_

"Shit. What the hell is wrong with this kid's mother?"

"She hates me."

Foreman raised his eyebrows but not because he doubted House's statement. "Did your best to show her what an ass you are, huh?"

"Yes, I thoroughly educated her in the fact that her son will be cured if she just likes me a lot. I don't care what she thinks of me. I care that her son might die. I don't have to care about _her_. Therefore I don't have to be polite. Especially to a moron who won't listen to her son's doctor. Any more of your completely useless comments we can add to the differentials?"

House was a little testy. Foreman gave him ground. "Sorry. What do we do next?"

"We keep up the labs and hope we stumble onto something that'll give us a clue why this kid's starting to look like a cancer victim without the cancer."

"We're shooting blind." Foreman stood up. "I'll let the team know."

-

-

With much cajoling and Wilson's well worded warning that if he was going to pay the legally allowed maximum amount for support, then he had a say in what happened to his son medically. With a few choice words about him and his wrinkled, faggy boy-friend, Janele consented to stay, but still refused to consent to a blood sample.

Wilson found House sitting in the dark of his office with his head phones on, the back of the chair turned away from the door. Wilson walked up behind him softly and kissed his head.

House jumped, spinning the chair around, with some difficulty, since he had to lift his bum leg off the ottoman first. "Hey?" House saw it was Wilson kissing him and not a bold homosexual stranger, and decided not to bite his head off. "What are you doing here so late?"

"Going home. Care to join me?"

House relaxed in his chair again, settling his long spine into the chair's ample, very comfortable back rest. "Yes." House said, "but no."

Wilson got it. "How about dinner? A non-date dinner? You know, beer, pretzels, deep fried steak and greasy French fries, all that stuff your poor, abused arteries could do without."

House stood. "Porter-house?"

Wilson smiled. "Yes."

"Imported beer?"

"Yeah."

"Blackberry pie?"

"If they have it."

House studied his friend's face for a moment. "Promise you'll keep those downy-soft hands to yourself?"

"Promise." Wilson said as House lurched passed him on his cane. Wilson had a hard time dragging his eyes off of House's ass, then finally managed to exit through the door after him.

House caught the look. "Are you watching my ass?"

Wilson shrugged, this time in gentle humor. "Didn't say I wouldn't leer and make dirty comments."

House narrowed his eyes. "This better be the best Porter-house slab of cow-ass in New Jersey."

"Of course." Wilson assured him, his eyes lingering very obviously on the bulge below his friend's belt. "I always go for best piece of ass in New Jersey."

-

-

XXXXXXXXX

Part V asap.

And lots more coming after that.


	5. Chapter 5

One Small Consequence

Part V

By GeeLady

**Time-line:** Post-season 6

**Summary: **Once is usually enough when cheating love. Relationship angst and a few other things, too.

**Pairing:** House/Wilson

**Rating:** NC-17, Adult, +18, Mature. Language. Sexual situations. SLASH.

**Disclaimer:** The guy with cane doesn't belong to me, yadda, yadda...

XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX

"How's the kid?" Cuddy intercepted House on his way into the hospital the next morning. Cuddy shook the rain off her fashionable hat with the matching purse, while House tracked a trail of muddy water all the way to the nearest elevator. She softly scolded. "You should wipe your feet."

"That would mean two extra steps, and I'd never make it to my office." He explained.

Cuddy had heard many of House's excuses for his slovenliness. That was a new one. Too cute to try and top it. Moving on, "Why are you here so early?"

House thumbed back over his shoulder to the exit. "I can leave again if you want, and come back in five or six hours."

House leaned in until he was less than a foot from Cuddy's face, forcing her to increase the gap by leaning back. When House gestured, he used his whole body. For such a social recluse, he traded on being a public spectacle. He was a freak, albeit a cute, rumpled one.

He screwed up his face in contemplation. "Any aberrant behavior on my part could skew your expections of me. You might accidentally become excited and ovulate, and want another baby and then -" he said with a horrified grimace, "- god forbid - jump my bones! You could possibly end up getting the sexiest, hottest night of your life." He straightened up again, and stepped into the elevator. Turning around, "And I mean - who wants _that_?" He asked.

Cuddy nodded with her whole torso above the waist. "I couldn't agree more." She held the elevator doors, and tried again. "How is your patient?"

House shook off the worries itching at his mind. "No worse, but the day is young."

Cuddy let him go. "Keep me informed."

House clicked his heels and saluted boy-scout style, and Cuddy let the doors close.

He was verbally accosted by all four members of his team when he entered the conference room.

Foreman had their patient's chart in his hands. "House. We're thinking this could be toxoplasmosis."

House poured a coffee. "Does this "we're" include an "I'm"? Meaning me. I'm the most important part of "we're"." He took a seat. "Is this a guess or do you actually have anything to support it?"

"He's got a ulcerated cornea, he's developed a rash. We've seen a slight enlargement of the lymph nodes but no infection. And remember the so-called partially digested "milk-like substances" in his jejunum? The things we thought might be small cancerous lesions. What if those are small toxoplasmotic infections?"

"There was nothing in the blood to suggest it." House countered. But you never knew. "Does the mom have a cat?"

Hadley recalled from the history she took of the woman. "She seems to. We talked about allergies."

Foreman held his head to one side. "It's possible that the mom's had it for a long time only doesn't know it. Some people are a-symptomatic for years. Then thanks to Two-Timing-Wilson, she got pregnant and passed it on to her son."

House frowned at him. "Watch it. I'm the only one allowed to mock Wilson." He had to take a few seconds to push aside the sudden surge of protective grumpiness Foreman's insult had evoked in him. Wilson_ was_ a two-timer, but he didn't deserve to be disparaged about it. Actually, House decided, he _did_ deserve to be disparaged, but only by his ex-boy-friend-best-friend.

House nodded to his big-mouthed employee. "Okay." He would punish Foreman for his brashness. "_You,_ go interview Oscar, and get a sample of his sand-mines."

Foreman was about to protest the minion assignment, then realized it was House's way of defending Wilson without seeming to. "Fine. Whatever."

Hadley thought she understood House's often cryptic orders. He was a man who loved beer, porn, motorcycles and poetry. "You mean bring in the cat and a sample of litter - right."

House bugged his eyes at her. "Duh." House said.

A rude poet, she decided.

"You - lesbo' - get a blood sample from Wilson."

"Why me?"

"'Cause Wilson'll do anything for a skirt."

They all took the hint. House was the only one allowed to insult Wilson in House's presence. Hadley reminded her unpredictable boss, "Toxo' can't be passed through sexual intercourse."

No _duh_ this time, just a nod. "No, but it can by blood. Maybe Wilson went swimming in the red sea? Just do it."

House waited until his team had filed out to perform their assigned tasks. Then he three-legged it to his storage closet, switched on the light, closed the door and pulled out three small items from three different boxes hidden behind a square foot of printing paper on the top shelf.

House set his cane against the closed door, and with old-school skill, tied a rubber tourniquet around his left upper arm. With his index finger, he tapped for the likely vein and, once it popped to the surface, carefully inserted the fine needle. Steadying the imbedded needle with his thumb, he slowly pushed the vacutainer tube onto the exposed end of the needle and watched his own blood obediently fill it.

He removed the tube, withdrew the needle and fumbled with a small white bandage. Rolling down his shirt sleeves to hide the self-sampling, House trashed the needle and returned to his desk. He would run the lab on his own blood himself. He realized he was being a little paranoid, (after all, he wasn't the one who had slept with the enemy and her blood wasn't on his bayonet), but still you can't be too careful where a slut is concerned - and by slut, he wasn't thinking of her.

-

-

Wilson called House nearly every day now.

"House." He answered the shrill bleeping of his office phone.

_"Hey."_

Wilson's habitual greeting. House suspected his ex-lover was trying to be friendly-but-slightly-intimate-too, though attempting not to look too obvious about it.

"Weed." House answered.

_"Yesterday your greeting to me was __**Straw**__. The day before that __**Crab-grass.**__ Can't you be less like you?"_

"If I was less like me, I'd be more like you and I'd be answering with _Crabs_."

_"Right. I do not have an STD."_

"You mean Steadfast True Devotion?"

_"I mean-"_ House heard an audible sigh leak through the wire. _"Can we just drop the barbs and __innuendo__? Can't we please just exchange civil conversation?"_

House sat back in his chair. "What's up?" He may as well try. Wilson was trying. They could try and fail together.

_"What was the result on-?"_

"Not toxoplasmosis."

_"Any idea-?"_

"Nope. Any cooperation from Jessica Hahn?"

_"No. I don't have a tap-wire into her head. I can't make her cooperate just because we had a baby." _

"You certainly tapped into something. Besides, a tap-wire's simple compared to that."

_"Only initially. Then you learn things you'd rather not have learned and end up doing things you wish you hadn't and pretty soon - boom - you're being charged with treason and deported."_

"Are we still speaking about your penis, or are you watching an episode of Mission Impossible?"

_"No, I'm talking to a crazy man. I'm using your language."_

There was a long pause on the other end and for a moment, House thought Wilson had hung up on him. His heart beat just a little faster when he thought he might have mocked him just a little too well and made him upset enough to hang up on him. "Wilson?"

_"Yeah?"_

House hated how relieved he felt. "It's been a month. What are you doing in counseling now?"

_"Discussing my mixed feelings toward you."_

Mixed? "Oh." House couldn't think of one clever response or a single intelligent question to that, though his flighty heart started to dance around again.

_"Yeah. I love you, but I'm terrified to lose you. So I hurt you to protect myself."_ Wilson chuckled ruefully. In House's ear, it sounded like the kind of laugh one laughs when one has done oneself in via one's own stupidity. _"How pathetic is that?"_

House retired the teasing for the night. "'S'not pathetic."

Wilson sighed again. This time a long, low depressed sound. House hated that he wished Wilson was in the room, so he could see his face and think of some way to fix all this.

But he couldn't afford another heartbreak. He wasn't even over this one yet. Not by a long shot.

Whenever he was forced to deal with the kid's mother, House felt a pressure on his chest as though an anvil was sitting there, cracking through his sternum. Whenever he had to deal with Wilson, even the times he wanted to, he felt sick, hollow and still angry. He felt discarded.

Even though Wilson had only been unfaithful just the one night while piss-drunk, it had hurt too much to ignore. Since Wilson's little mistake had entered his world, platonically they'd shared one lunch and one dinner. Both had been okay, with casual talk and no overtures on Wilson's part to intimacy. But still, the hollowness, the hurt, the anger over Wilson blowing it for both of them. . .it was too much to ask to just forget about it, continue having sex and move on.

Maybe not so much he couldn't _forgive_ someday. But get back together? No way. Not until he saw some proof that Wilson had really, finally changed his philandering tendencies. The only thing was, how do you compile proof of when compiling proof required getting back together and trying again? The frustrated divots between his brows came together in a mini-frown. _Shit. _

House opened his desk's bottom drawer, pushed aside a half-empty bottle of very good whiskey and a short glass smelling of the sugary remnants of dried alcohol. He checked to see if the papers, (the papers nestled in his pocket and brought home on that fateful day of hurricane Janele), were still present and accounted for.

There they lay, gathering dust and beverage rings. Satisfied no one had been snooping, House closed it and said into the phone. "You _will_ lose me."

Wilson didn't speak for a few seconds. _"What do you m-mean?"_

"Everybody dies, Wilson. Some day I'll die, Cuddy, Stacey, you - eventually, you'll lose everyone, including me. If you can accept that, you won't have to _worry_ about losing me. All you'll have to do is worry about keeping me until then."

To House, it was simple. He'd switched it around in his head a long time ago. Easterners called it Buddhism, but it was just being willing to accept the inevitable. Believe you'll lose everything and you'll daily value whatever matters to you the most.

House took a deep breath. "The following is the mushiest thing you will ever hear me say and if you tell anyone, I'll murder you and then deny both my crimes. Remember - you _are_ going to lose the person you love. Live by that - _count _on it, and you'll _never_ cheat. You won't ever want to."

House nervously drummed his fingers on the desk. Few people he knew had the guts to adopt such a philosophy. Most called it morbid. He called it full-proof. "By the way, if either you _don't_ love them right now, or you take for granted that they'll be there tomorrow, no amount of therapy will help. And so you'll cheat. _Especially_ you because you've had so much practice."

House wondered if Wilson was silent because he was stunned by the uncharacteristic sentimentality, or because he was trying to stifle laughter.

_"House, I love you. I love you like crazy, but I still cheated. How does your axiom explain that?"_

The frown deepened. Leave it to Wilson to blow a perfectly good philosophy all to hell. "It doesn't."

-

-

Hadley nursed a cup of House-made coffee. Their boss, for all his exasperating ways and lousy salary, liked a good cup of coffee. In small ways, House spoiled them, like keeping only expensive grounds stocked in his department, and personally delivering a half dozen fresh bakery bagels almost every morning. At rare times, House was an angel in disguise. Hadley shook her head. No. That was taking it too far. House was a devil in therapy.

The limping demon himself came through the door, unceremoniously dumping a paper bag of delicious smelling bakery goods on the table. Hadley passed the morning's blueberry bagels on to Taub, who fished one out of the bag and chewed on it without waiting for the cream cheese Foreman fished from the small fridge.

Hadley herself was watching her weight. "Wilson sent us the results. Negative for non-Hodgkin's lymphoma or any other kind of cancer." Both the theories had been long shots.

"And it's not hyperthyroidism." Taub added.

House seemed distracted. "Why would a mother refuse to give a blood sample?"

Hadley hated to suggest it, since House had come in quietly and hadn't tossed a sarcastic or insulting remark to any of them so far. "Um, because she hates you?"

House looked at her and, to her surprise, didn't get snippy. Instead he answered with another question. "Lots of my patient's dearest have hated me, but they still let me help their child once I showed them the error of their idiot ways. "Scarlet's" kid is getting worse, but she won't cough up a few cc's of juice to find out why."

House paced back and forth. "Doesn't she love him? Does she want him to die?" House was more thinking aloud than discussing it with his team. "More likely, she's hiding something medical which would explain all this. Yet, she's active with a glow on her cheeks, and her lungs and heart are perfect. She's the picture of health - if pictures were cold-hearted sluts."

"What's the deal on the court order?" Foreman asked.

House looked at his watch. "We have to wait only six, no, seven more _days_ for it." His sarcasm had returned. The calm-and-gentle House moment passed into history. "Forget the court order. By the time it gets here we'll probably need a court order for an autopsy."

"Did the mom take her son camping?" Taub asked the room.

House said. "Monika seems to prefer indoor activities. Easier on the knees."

"I mean, if they went camping - depending on where - the kid could have digitoxin poisoning."

House thought for a moment. It was possible. Almost all the symptoms fit. "How's the kid's heart rate?"

"On the low side but still within norms." Taub said.

"Depending on how much he ingested and when, it might not show up in the blood, but it still would have collected in the tissues." House nodded his approval to Taub. A veritable Knighting ceremony in House's world. "Extra bagel for you tomorrow."

House then gave orders to all. "Do another complete blood work-up. This time, double check for hyperkalemia, ditto for calcium, and for _low_ levels of magnesium. If his motor won't tell us anything, maybe the gasoline will."

-

-

"What's the matter with you?" House asked Wilson when Wilson yawned for the tenth time since entering his office.

"I'm beat."

"Bald headed kids needed extra hugging today?"

"No." Wilson ignored the by now House's worn out reference to his cancer-stricken patients. "I'm just really tired." Wilson looked House in the eye, his hint was plain. "I don't sleep well anymore without you there."

House wished Wilson would quit that. The tiny little flirting words he threw in now and then. And he'd ignored all of House's requests to do so. "Need a 'script? A bar-pick-up perhaps?" He asked, mostly to lead the conversation elsewhere.

Wilson didn't bite. "No, just you back in my bed."

House looked at his desk. "That wouldn't suck." He himself had experienced a few sleepless nights in between dark, handsome hookers who, other than for one specific use, kept their mouths shut. "But . . ."

Wilson refused to look away. "I know. I'm still broken."

House stared right back this time. "Are you?"

"Am I what?"

"Still broken?"

Wilson felt that if House gave him another chance, he'd never screw up again. He would never, ever look at another woman - or man either. He missed House so badly, he felt like crying right in that chair. It would make House squirm, so he didn't. "I think maybe the glue is starting to set."

House nodded. "Make it a _weld_, and we'll see about those sleepless nights." House added, not wanting to make it too easy for his wandering lover, "_Maybe."_

"You shouldn't be so self righteous about this, House. I know you've been using hookers."

House guessed he knew. He hadn't taken any great pains to hide it. "Nameless, faceless hookers who are there for one reason - to get me off." He explained succinctly. "And I didn't make a call until over a month after our break-up. I have "sleepless nights" too."

Wilson said gently. "Nameless - sure. But not _face_less. Come on, House -_ tall,_ _dark haired, brown eyes, youngish_...that's not a coincidence."

"You forgot _quiet_." House emphasized. "Trust me, that's not _you_."

Wilson looked smug. House hated smug Wilson. "Wipe that clever grin off your mug. It wasn't that hard to find out." House said. "So you figured out my secret code. So what?"

"So nothing." Wilson admitted. "It was just...I don't care about the hookers, House, I really don't. It tells me something, though."

"It tells you I have a high sex drive despite having a fifty year old penis and a hundred year old leg."

Wilson still looked a bit smug. "It means you love me."

Wilson had made the call one afternoon to House's old private detective (two can play that game), and hired him to keep an eye on House's apartment; monitor the comings and goings. Turned out, it was mostly _come_-ings, of brown haired, young looker-hookers that House ushered in with an impatient nod. Not exactly a romantic scene, but it had given Wilson hope.

He himself on two separate nights of desperation, had called an escort service - one House did not use - and made clear his own specifics: _tall, slim, older, athletic, two day growth of beard, blue eyes, brown hair..._he'd stopped at that, doubting even an escort agency that promised _"Just what you want, when you want it." _would have on staff a scruffy but sexy doctor-type with one crippled thigh and a cane.

Ultimately, what had arrived at his doorstep had disappointed. Wilson had taken one look at the fifty-five year old, his hair _died_ brown, his eyes more gray than blue, his physique still in shape but just _wrong._ Too leggy, too wide in the face, too narrow in the hip, no tee-shirt or jeans - the guy had arrived in a _suit _for god's sake. And no nice, soft House-ish smell of laundry detergent and coffee or, even better, whiskey on his breath.

Wilson had paid the man and apologized with a bull-shit excuse, sending him away with a tip. He ended the night in the shower, jacking off to visions of House panting and squirming beneath him.

It had heavily underlined for him that House was so one-of-a-kind, a substitute just wouldn't do. House seemed to magically possess a sex appeal that was all his, and, to Wilson's frustration, he appeared to accomplish it without making any effort what-so-ever.

House was tall, yes, that had a lot to do with it. Tall men seemed to command respect, even if they happened to be a little odd or unkempt. House had perfected both states of being. He also had a slim face with a slightly weak chin which was not exactly the ideal in man-flesh, yet somehow it was attractive on him. Despite so many physical "imperfections", House managed to pull off handsome.

But Wilson thought, it had to be the eyes and the startling intelligence behind them that really drew people in.

Most times, House saw through people with a single glance. Often women, especially the younger, impressionable ones, twittered under those blue-eyed devils. Not a few young men did, too. Wilson knew by name three younger male nurses and one intern who spent proportionally far too much time hanging around the halls near House's office. Some times even following him into the bathroom. Their sexual interest was clear.

In shocking contrast, though, House seemed oblivious to the male of the breed and their scrutiny of him.

The funny thing was, Wilson hadn't noticed any men longing after House until he himself had started doing the same thing. He'd hid it for a while (House didn't see everything).

One day Wilson, on a half drunken whim, made a pass at his best friend. House had responded with characteristic curiosity and then, in the end, with a verbal "what-the-hell". They had spent the night in Wilson's bed exploring each other's bodies.

Things had blossomed from there.

Wilson looked fondly at his best friend, the man he considered, even while separated, to be his only and ever lover. "You love me, House. We're going to be okay, you know."

To his credit, House did not rudely interject with a dismissive remark. He was listening. "It's just going to take some time."

XXXXXXXX

Part VI asap


	6. Chapter 6

One Small Consequence

Part VI

By GeeLady

Time-line: Post-season 6

Summary: Once is usually enough when cheating love. Relationship angst and a few other things, too.

Pairing: House/Wilson

Rating: NC-17, Adult, +18, Mature. Language. Sexual situations. SLASH.

Disclaimer: The guy with cane doesn't belong to me, yadda, yadda...

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Taub entered House's office followed by Foreman, Hadley and, to House's surprise, Cameron. House paused his on-line game and stared at the foursome. "I hope you're not interrupting my Road-kill Rebel game for a conga-line? 'Cause my good leg's at the shop."

"There was nothing in the feces." Hadley said.

House looked pleased. "Oh, then this is your happy poo dance? - my mistake." Then he snapped his fingers. "Oh - you mean the _cat. _Right."House stood, picking up his cane. "Told you it wasn't toxoplasmosis." He looked at Cameron. "Why are _you_ here? Was your poo happy, too?"

Cameron shook off her former boss's bodily-function related quips. "Chase wondered if you needed a bed in Intensive."

"No, I feel just fine."

"For your _patient_."

He looked at her disapprovingly. "You've lost your sense of humor since the wedding. First the humor goes, then the sex, and before you know it, you're just plain ol' Cameron again, having dirty fantasies about me. Why didn't Chase make the call?"

"He went into surgery."

House left his office and turned right. All four doctors followed, Cameron included.

When he saw Cameron still tagging along, House abruptly stopped, addressing her. "Are you keeping tabs on me via my patients? Or is Chase keeping tabs on me via my patient's via you?"

Cameron's lips moved silently, trying to follow House's long back-stretch road to his meaning. "I'm not sure I even understand that. Chase heard about your patient via Cuddy. Cuddy said he's not doing well at all. Chase though you might need a space."

House frowned. "Cuddy - two B boobs and a double-D mouth." House continued walking in the direction of the men's room. He looked back at the crowd keeping his tail. "Are you all going to follow me into the bathroom? I'm old enough to hold it myself now." He nodded his head at Foreman. "You're the co-department head - go think of something clever to test for and start earning your pay."

Foreman turned on his heel, waved to the underlings and they followed. For a moment Cameron stared after House's hitching retreat, then returned to Emergency.

House watched from around a corner until they disappeared from sight, then bee-lined for Wilson's office.

Wilson was busy with a patient when his door opened. But he took a few seconds away from his patient to speak when he saw who it was. "What, House?"

House jerked his head for Wilson to join him on the balcony, walking passed Wilson's patient as though she wasn't in the room.

Wilson sighed and assured his newest cancer victim he'd return in a moment. Closing the door to his office, Wilson turned and, keeping it simple, "What?"

House regarded him disapprovingly. "Testy."

"I'm with a patient, like you should be with yours. What is it?"

"Blood sample?"

"Not yet."

House tried and failed not to look irritated. "_When?" _

"When I find her. When she finds me. When I'm done with my patient."

"Your patient can wait."

"She's got pancreatic cancer. No she can't."

"She's got four months. Barry's got a week."

Wilson rubbed his forehead and spoke into House's face, one hand chopping each point out of the air like a tomahawk. "House. Barry's my _son_. I'm currently doing, and I _intend _to do everything I can for him, but I also have a practice to maintain, and a reputation as a doctor who actually gives a damn about his patients. I can't just walk away from Misses Hesch for pointless chit-chat. So, unless the world's coming to and end, next time just phone."

House stared into Wilson's office where the plump, soon-to-be less plump middle-aged woman in the tasteful blue skirt and blouse sat, pretending not to stare out the window at them both. "She respects you I'm sure. Nice Jewish lady finds a nice Jewish doctor from the right neighborhood. Makes sense."

Wilson shook his head. House was being cryptic. "She's Jewish, yes, but it's not a club thing. She has cancer, I treat cancer, it works that way. Now-"

Making certain the nice Jewish lady could see every movement, House took Wilson's face between his hands and kissed him hard on the mouth. When he let him go, Wilson's ears were bright red and Misses Hesch's mouth was open wide enough to catch a fly.

House stepped back. "Barry's getting worse every day." House said to Wilson, knowing with Wilson some things take time to sink in. But there was no time left to be gentle with words. "_His_ world is coming to and end. Get me the blood sample, or your nice half-Jewish son is going to die." House pointed to the cancer lady with his cane as he hopped the brick dividing wall between their open-air extensions, and walked to his own balcony door leading into his more spacious inner territory. "Tell Misses Hesch that your non-Jewish, former lover says hello."

-

-

Later that day, Janele made her unwavering decision not to assist House in the diagnosing of his son, seeming willing to all but abandon Barry to his fate. Arguing with her, pleasing, screaming had done no good.

Wilson left her apartment, beginning to feel the slow creeping instincts of father-hood, with all its duties and agonies. House's words repeated in his head like a feed-back loop of impending doom. A whole different future was pounding its fist against his door, rattling the hinges.

The next part of the unraveling scenario that was his life, was one Wilson had avoiding for as long as possible; visiting Barry in Pediatric isolation. A secluded place of hushed words and dim lighting that was one step short of Pediatric Intensive (one step short of the morgue).

Wilson held his breath when he approached Barry's little plastic bubble of life, where the squeaky clean oxygen was pumped in while a constant negative pressure of air pumped out to keep germs at bay, and maintain in him what little health lingered.

Barry was sitting up, staring around him with round, frightened eyes. He was fourteen months and had no idea why he had been separated from his mother or who all the strange faces were and why, save for the frequent times of sharp pain where hands poked him with things, he was so rarely touched or comforted. When he saw the dark haired man approach, he set up a wail, recognizing his father - the only man he knew - whom he had seen only a few times, before his world had become this white, cold, awful place of hurt.

Wilson felt a lump form in his throat. He'd avoided seeing the child because he did not want anything distracting him from his goal of re-gaining House, and he did not think both House and the child would, or could, fit into what he wanted his world to again be. But circumstances conspired to remove all decisions from him, it seemed, and he fell under fate's hand, entering beside Barry's protective transparent chamber of hope.

The boy did so much look like him. This _was_ his son; his child. Perhaps the only one he might ever have. His child was dying, House said. Wilson felt reassured that it was House saying those terrible words, because House would do almost anything to prevent their triumph. They seemed cut off from their power next to House's arrogance and unprecedented track record of success.

For all the times Wilson had chided and scolded House for his bending, and sometimes, breaking, legalities to effect a treatment, now all his recalcitrant, defiant actions seemed to make so much more sense. Surely a life was more important than a rule? Surely his _son's_ life held more value than a regulation designed to protect the whole rather than the one. The whole is made up of one plus one plus one.

Barry cried and the sound hooked into and tore at Wilson's heart until it broke through, flooding him with remorse and the urge to gather the helpless toddler into his arms. Except he could not touch him with even one naked finger.

The abomination that a wall of plastic was keeping him away from comforting his own child was becoming almost unbearable, when suddenly House was at his side, standing very close to him. House was near. House was there, touching Wilson as Wilson imagined touching Barry, in House's own quiet, still-life way.

Be near but do not touch. Don't make it worse by a physical contact. Don't prompt the breakdown by loving proximity. Leave the vulnerable a small path out, so he can make his way with solitary strength if he chooses.

Wilson felt the warmth from House's body, inches from his own, and felt the soft breath from House's mouth, a comforting air kept even and un-touched by grief, because Wilson was touched by it enough.

Wilson tried to draw on that power of House's; that extraordinary way he had of plowing through pain like a locomotive through a driving snow, in defiance blowing his whistle long into the night. Wilson rode that iron rail in shaking silence, weeping into his hands. House would not mock him. House knew loss.

House knew Wilson also, through and through.

Wilson, standing there, looking at his own son, his child, his flesh and blood, felt such an explosion of love for this child he hardly knew, it didn't seem possible. His child was soon to die. Because of the skilled hand and brilliance of his lover, Wilson, along with the agony, felt also a comfort from House presence he had never before known. Both seemed without reason, but both were.

A terrible strangled fear for his son's life arose with the love and battled for his heart. Wilson wiped at his eyes, searched for and found House's hand next to his own, fumbled for House's fingers, squeezing them tightly. Next to the shockingly instant love for his son ached an abiding devotion for this man who loved him. His lover whom he had wounded, still standing by, willing to do whatever was necessary.

So much at his fingertips. So much to lose. "Oh, my god, House." He whispered. Desperate, helpless sounds. "Please, _please_ save him."

"I'll try. . ."

Wilson waited for the other shoe. With House there was no social contract. They had agreed.

" . . .but it may not be possible."

-

-

"House." Chase entered his office. No game on the computer today. Day twelve of Barry's death race. Barry was ahead by a lethargic, fevered brain.

House stared dully at Chase, not bothering to ask why he was there or say a greeting. He just stared and let Chase speak whatever words he'd come to say.

Chase didn't comment on the quiet, sober House. "I was curious why the mother of your patient wouldn't cooperate and I did some snooping. I think Barry, might have Steven's Johnson's."

House raised his eyebrows. "We already thought of that, he wasn't given any sulpha drugs, no ibuprofen, no aspirin..."

"Not here he wasn't. But what if he was given it somewhere else?" Chase read from a sheet of paper in his hand. "I checked at some local clinics near Janele Nordrick's address. She didn't tell us that seventeen days ago, she took Barry in to a free clinic to see the doctor. According to the chart, Barry presented with a high fever and a rash. The clinic physician put it down to a mild flu', and he wrote a prescription for low dose baby aspirin. I _then_ checked at all the local pharmacies - Janele never filled that prescription."

House nodded. "So he _didn't_ get any aspirin, and therefore does _not_ have Stev- "

"-hang on. The clinic was free, but the med's still cost, and Janele Nordrick does not have health insurance. She's behind on her rent, her electricity's been cut off - maybe she couldn't afford the prescription, so she filled it _herself_?" Chase gave House a few seconds to process it. "Maybe that's why she refuses to come near you or anyone involved with Barry's case - she's afraid this is all her fault; that she'll be held responsible."

House felt a small surge of pride over his former employee. Chase may have been a spoilt brat, but he was never stupid. "If she gave him a regular, high dose adult Advil, she is responsible." House finished the line of thought. "An adult dose could easily be enough to cause a SJS reaction." House pursed his lips, his version of a smile of approval. "You must miss being a Jedi."

Chase rolled his eyes. "Cameron misses it. This was her foot-work. I'm just helping out _her_ tiny part of _your_ medical mystery, _Obiwan. _It makes her happy."

House huffed through his nose. A good natured huff. "You two may do okay after all." House stood, favoring his leg.

Chase noted it without direct comment. "You want Barry moved to the Burn Unit?"

House shook his head. "Not yet. He's already protected where he is. If this is SJS, he'll get worse before he gets better and germ-free is what he needs right now. But have them get a room ready anyway."

Chase nodded and turned to go.

"Chase." House waited for his employee, the only one he ever fired, to turn around. "Thanks."

"Thank Cameron." Chase nodded and left.

-

-

"SJS is pretty rare, especially in children." Foreman played devil's advocate. "This is far more likely a ARO - a systemic infection."

House was poised before his white-board once more. Old theories rubbed out, the new one written in block letters. "He's had a pharmacy of anti-biotics, with no change." House reminded him.

"Then give him a little more time. It hasn't been a week." Foreman insisted.

House dropped the marker into its tiny ledge at the bottom of the board. "A week is enough to show change. There hasn't been any. At this stage, SJS makes more sense." House looked around at his interns. "Anyone else got anything better?"

No one said anything and House nodded. "Fine. Treat him for SJS."

Foreman said, his voice a pounding drum on House's brain to make it ache. "If you're wrong, he's dead."

House snapped at him. "He's just as dead if _you're_ wrong! So give us alternate brilliance, or treat him for SJS."

Foreman acquiesce and lead the team out the door.

House stared at the black marks, the symptoms, the clues to the mystery. Wilson's surprise mystery child. Four days before the court order for Janele's fugitive blood, but Janele had refused to help them out of fear. Maybe if he told her he now _knew_ why, she'd see there was no point in hiding any more. He'd get his sample and the court order be damned. House gathered up his jacket and helmet.

Janele Nordrick's apartment had a sign on the door: "To Rent". House walked across a few feet of neglected lawn and peered into the grimy basement window. The place was empty. He pulled out his cell phone and called Wilson.

When Wilson answered, "Did you know your baby machine moved?" House asked point blankly.

Wilson paused on the other end. "No - what? You mean she's gone?"

"Yup. Nothing left but a dusty coat of shame."

"Why would she do that?"

"You slept with her - don't you know _anything_ about this woman?"

"No. I was _drunk_, she was, I don't know what she was - she was there..._some_where - I don't remember."

"Barry has Steven's Johnson Syndrome."

Wilson let out a breath. One he'd probably been holding for a week. "That's bad - if it's _bad_. _Is_ it bad?"

"Don't know yet. With SJS, it usually isn't good. But he may come through this. All we can do is treat the symptoms and wait."

Wilson sighed again. He sounded less terrified. "Thank you, House. I mean it. I know how awful this has been for you, but he's my son. I can't - I mean I don't want to - he's my child. He's . . .important to me. I care about him,...I love him."

"I know." House said simply. It was true. He understood, even if he didn't share in the feeling and probably never would. Wilson was a dad now. Barry was the new affair.

He was just the former boyfriend. The ex-sex. There was a difference. There should be.

"Almost as important as you." Wilson added with human hope over the tiny voice-box. They shared small words through a data-stream. And that's about all.

House drew his feelings in, curling them around his wounded pride and sealing it off. "You're welcome."

"House, I-"

House shut his cell phone, cutting off Wilson's next sentimental words of sorry, and walked to his bike. A nice evening ride would take the edge off nicely. Wilson had his Barry. Barry had his father. There was a whole new Wilson in the world. Wilson the dad. Little time to be anything else for ten years at least. Diapers, tricycles, kindergarten, school books, little league. . .all good wholesome family things.

But a bike ride in the hills at crazy speeds, the wind screeching in your ears and rushing against your eyeballs, making them water and sting.

Nothing topped that.

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Part VII asap (We're not done even by half yet. Still lots more to come)


	7. Chapter 7

One Small Consequence

Part VII

By GeeLady

Time-line: Post-season 6

Summary: Once is usually enough when cheating love. Relationship angst and a few other things, too.

Pairing: House/Wilson

Rating: NC-17, Adult, +18, Mature. Language. Sexual situations. SLASH.

Disclaimer: The guy with the cane and the hot a$$ doesn't belong to me, yadda, yadda...

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House rolled over and answered his ringing beside phone. He fumbled for the receiver in the dark and put it to the side of his face that wasn't still buried in the downy pillow. "This better be naked Cuddy or Wilson in his Spiderman outfit, or I'm hanging up in four, three, two"

"House." It was Chase.

House rolled over. Chase calling him in the middle of the night meant it wasn't pleasure. Who was he kidding. Chase never called him about anything if it wasn't work. "Your case; this suspected Steven's - it acting...a little weird."

"Define weird." Steven's caused rashes, pustules, mucous membrane sloughing, fever, lethargy, dementia - Steven's was the text-book on weird.

"Barry has pneumonia."

House sighed into the mouthpiece. As bad news went, it was in the middle between bad and not-so-bad. Steven's victims often produced a lot of phlegm from the bronchi's. House said as much to Chase.

"And he's got a weird mark on the inside of his lip."

House sat up. Chase sounded more than puzzled. He sounded weirded-out. "Canker sore? Blister? What does it look like?"

"It's not a pustule. It's solid."

House lost patience. "Get to the chase Chase. What do you think it is?"

"I don't know. Infected sailaden gland was my first thought."

House sat and thought. Sounded like an almost textbook salivary infection, but not quite. "What was your second?"

"Maybe cancerous."

Or a weirdly placed birthmark no one noticed before. Most mother's don't point those out, especially if they're already hidden. House wondered if he should call Wilson. If it was a blister, he would be waking him up for nothing. If it was a lesion, Wilson was their resident oncologist and should be told right away. "Take a scraping."

"Should I call Wilson?"

House said. "No." And hung up. He'd call him, when he decided it was warranted. House rolled out of bed, massaged his thigh which was protesting the early awakening by twitching and causing its owner several minutes of break-through nerve pain.

House took his time getting dressed. One possible blister did not require a ride to the hospital at break-neck speed. He would stop and get an espresso and a donut. Barry and his blister could wait.

By the time he arrived and dragged his sore leg up to Pediatric Intensive, Wilson was already at Barry's bubble-bedside.

Wilson had his back to him, and House lingered by the door, glaring at Chase. "I told you not to call him."

Chase was preparing an IVPB. "Over the last hour, Barry developed some heavy diarrhea that shows no signs of slowing down. He's fevered and weak. Wilson's his father, I called him."

House whispered fiercely. "You should have called me _first_."

"Your cell phone was _off_. Now, do you mind? I'm trying to work here." Chase whispered back though not as mindful of his volume as was House. Wilson had heard and turned around. House dug his phone out of his pocket. The battery was dead. "Shit."

To Chase he said loudly enough for Wilson to hear (if for nothing else but to save face with his ex-lover who's very ill son he had been made the attending - ("_which attending had stopped for coffee and donuts instead of racing to the bedside of his ex-lover's ill __**son**__" - _Wilson's expression seemed to say))_,_ "It wasn't off, it was _dead_!"

The word echoed unnaturally in the room. Wilson frowned, disapproving of House's choice of word and level of decibels.

House frowned back. "Relax, Wilson," He said to cover his own twitchy feelings. "A word can't make itself come true."

Wilson ignored them both, except to offer a terse, "Will you keep your voices down please?"

House growled - more quietly - to Chase. "My pager was _on_. Was that too difficult an option?"

Wilson watched House limp heavily to his son's bed-side. Using his patent-pending Wilson Look Of Disapproval, he did not fail to once again bring that disapproval heavily upon the wayward coffee and bag of donuts, as though it was on-par with House having stopped for a few belts of hard liquor and a fifty-dollar blow-job.

House bristled. "Say your piece already. _Yes!_ - I stopped for donuts." He nodded to their small patient. "This is a blister, not an emergency."

Wilson didn't say anything beyond, "Until he started gushing out of his bowels. _Now_ it's an emergency."

House upended and swallowed the dregs of his now cold coffee in a single gulp, crushed and tossed the empty paper cup in a nearby trash can. A gray-black cloud of guilt and anger followed his every move, and he dumped the donuts in the same can, his appetite vanishing like a maggot fart.

Returning to the bed and to Wilson's side, he tried not to stare at his disappointed ex-lover-new-dad pal. All Wilson ever had to do to make him feel like a oily coil of dog-shit was to point out his haphazardly thrown together clothes, his lateness, his "excuse" of the leg that slowed him down, his perfectly reasonable need for a coffee boost at two AM - all-in-all - his less than Wilson-like quick and early promptness. The man was an Energizer bunny in a starched, pressed shirt.

"Good thing Chase was here." Wilson added.

"Absolutely." House said, his sarcasm clear as a ringing bell. "Cause the other two thousand employees working here tonight would have been totally screwed without Chase or you to point out the terrific mystery of watery diaper poo."

"Why weren't _you_ here?"

Trust Wilson to rub it in. House took off his coat. "Because, weirdly enough at two in the morning, I was sleeping. When I left he was stable." House sighed to himself, not letting another puff of his stale, cigarette stunk lung air betray how exhausted he felt, and not just because of the lack of sleep. The whole shit-riding situation sucked big hairy ones, and he was sick of Wilson turning his gooey brown eyes on him like a basset hound hoping for a magic bone. And then biting the hand that was trying to pull that bone out of a hat.

Wilson nodded, apparently willing to give up the fight before it began.

"Where were you?" House asked. Wilson lived farther from the hospital than he did.

"Sleeping in the doctor's lounge."

Of course. Wilson was fabulous at playing roles. First, devoted son, then devoted father, then devoted husband, and most recently - devoted boyfriend; the acts of which never lasted more than a year or so.

Now: devoted dad. Problem was, life wasn't made up of parts played, it was made up of people who tried and failed, who fucked up accidentally and on purpose. There were no roles, no tangible rules, and no play on a stage. There was only exactly what you got from minute to minute, raw and fresh and, if you're lucky, unadulterated with masks of pretend.

Few were lucky. "Did Chase take the scraping like I asked?"

Wilson nodded. "I've got my tech' on it. By morning we'll know if it's cancerous or not."

House nodded. Seems his work was done here. Hadn't actually got off the ground, really. "Even if it is, it could be just a benign polyp. Probably been there a long time, only no one noticed it until now. Now that he's under closer scrutiny. . ." House hated spreading lame encouragement and pointless hope. Wilson knew all that, too, but in the face of Wilson's undertone of holier-than-thou, he felt he should say something. That's what lovers did when one of them wasn't feeling right. That's what he wanted to do. But Wilson was acting like a well-dressed mannequin with a glass wall around him.

Over the last week, House felt like he'd been tossed back and forth between being loved and being hated, Wilson's cold fingers throwing him farther each time. When would the toss come where he might not be caught? House hated that he felt inadequate. The kid wasn't responding like a SJS patient. He wasn't acting like anything he recognized. But SJS still made more sense than anything else.

Just because he needed to do something, he called over a nurse and ordered up a very mild topical antibiotic gel, just in case the membrane was an swollen, slightly infected gland.

Wilson made no comment. House gave up and left Wilson alone, making his way to the relative peace of his office. Swiveling in his chair, House switched the songs on his Ipod back and forth, unsatisfied with his usual choices of music that at any other time would normally sooth him into a non-caring stupor. Giving up, he pulled the tiny ear pieces off with a hard tug and disgustedly flung the irritating device and its wires on his desk.

House poured a tumbler of whiskey and gave over to furious thought. Barry, all nineteen pounds of him, was slowly defeating his skill as a diagnostician. This simple SJS, if that what it was - and it _couldn't_ be anything else - was proving text-book Steven's, but also weirdly _un_-Steven's-like.

They had tested the kid for everything; infections, food and drug allergies, cancers, bleeding disorders, bowel malfunctions, celiac disease, diverticulitis, IBS's, they'd ran every genetic test in the time they had - all negative. The only thing they hadn't done was a blood panel and genetic indicators on the mother. But what would a healthy young woman with a clean medical history be hiding in her blood that they hadn't already tested her son for anyway? Most likely nothing.

Barry's immunities were fighting hard against, whatever this was, and his white count was climbing. Maybe Foreman was right. Maybe this was a hard-core ARO, something rare, something not usually seen in children. If they gave him powerful antibiotics, though, and it was SJS, and not an ARO, the reaction he would likely have to the drugs might kill him in just hours.

But not giving him anything was doing little in the other direction. His patient was gradually, frustratingly, _not_ getting any better at all.

Chase entered House's dim office and interrupted his old boss's mental mumbling. He was still in his scrubs and sweaty in all his body crevasses from working all night. "I'm going home." Chase said, a slight frown of distaste at House's on-the-job drinking. He'd seen House is a far worse states, however, than a little tipsy and made no comment, merely observing him calmly. "You want an update?"

House looked back just as calmly, asking quietly "Anything different?"

"No. Other than getting the diarrhea under control, he's not improving at all."

House stared at him soberly. No attitude, no jokes, no sarcasm or snappish remarks made it passed his lips, much to Chase's mild surprise. Such was, in his experience, something rare. "Then, no." House answered. "No update required."

"This probably is SJS, you know."

"I know."

From years of working with him, Chase thought he could read House pretty well. "Only you don't buy that, do you?"

House thought he did. If he ordered up IVPB antibiotics and he was wrong . . ."Yes, I _do_ buy it."

"Oh." Chase doubted that. "What if you're wrong?"

House leaned his elbows on the hard desk. "Then I'm wrong and he dies, and it was something else."

Chase nodded. He'd heard that answer before. It was House's knot-at-the-end-of-the-rope axiom. It was how he prepared himself to be wrong; to fail. House hated it, loathed it when he failed. He couldn't handle failure on a professional level at all. On a personal level, failure was veritably stenciled on his tee-shirts and he didn't give a rat's turd.

"But what if you _are_ wrong?" Chase knew House would understand that he wasn't speaking strictly of the medicine now.

"Wilson's son dies." House was about to add _"and Wilson will hate me again."_ but he didn't. He didn't want that, so he didn't say it. House hated hope, but occasionally, even he had little choice but to sit down with it and nurse a drink or two.

So instead House said, "Dying will change everything."

With a shudder of de-ja-vu, House emptied the golden liquid from the bottle into his glass and raised it to his lips. "C'est la' vie'."

-

-

An ever more worried Wilson called Chase at home, waking him up from a dead sleep, who referred him to Foreman who called House and suggested a round of antibiotics. "He's not improving, House. If this was SJS, the papules would have gotten larger - they haven't. This had got to be an infection."

When House told him what to do with his "got to be's", Foreman dialed Wilson back. When Wilson wearily answered, Foreman began without pre-amble. "You want to save your son? Then we need to talk right now. I'm coming over."

-

-

House arrived at the hospital in time to join Foreman, whom he correctly guessed was in Cuddy's office, arguing for the alternate diagnosis of a systemic ARO and a hard round of antibiotic treatment. "This cannot be Steven's." Foreman insisted to his boss's boss, the Dean Lisa Cuddy, who could not only fire him like House could, but fire him in a way House couldn't - not just from a department, but from the hospital. He didn't care. "House is wrong."

Cuddy was reluctant to over-rule House in favor of his co-worker who had not always been right either. "How can you be sure it isn't SJS?"

"SJS progresses. This isn't progressing in a way that indicates Steven's. This is way more likely an infection that has been raging, probably in his tissues."

"What is his white cell count?"

"Rising for the last two days. Over two hundred more cells in the last twelve hours alone."

Cuddy bit her lip. When House barged in, she jumped, drawing blood. "Damn-it House - _knock!"_

House ignored her and her bloody lip. "Don't listen to him, he killed a woman once with one of his "got to be's". You want that all over again?" House scratched his chin. "Actually, he _quit_ after that, didn't he? I changed my mind, let him think "got to be" all he wants, just let _me_ treat the patient for his obvious SJS."

Cuddy stared at both of her employees. "Jesus." She muttered under her breath. "This is not a pissing contest. This is Wilson's _son_."

"All the more reason to let the doctor with the better track record treat the sick person." House said.

Foreman rolled his eyes. "I spoke to Wilson, he's inclined to agree with me."

House froze on the spot, then set his lip. ""Inclined"? _One_ degree is an incline, too, but not one you'd notice unless you looked _real_ hard." House turned hard eyes to Cuddy. "I'll get dad riding the smart car in a minute. Be right back." He glared pointedly at Foreman. "Don't irradiate anyone's immune system while I'm gone."

Cuddy felt a massive headache knocking on her skull. "House-wait! What are - just a damn _min-" _

House ignored her sputters and left.

Cuddy motioned for Foreman to sit on her office couch. "Make yourself at home." She said to him when it appeared he was gathering strength to use House's absence from the room to press his case. She added in a no uncertain tone. "We're _waiting_."

-

-

House wrenched the door open to Wilson's office. "Did you fire me as attending?" He spat out angrily. "Because I think I missed the memo."

Wilson looked up at him, trying to keep his face calm, reasonable, friendly. It wasn't easy. "I just think Foreman makes a lot of sense. Barry's not getting better on your regime. Trying something else might get him-"

"Trying something else, especially antibiotics that'll turn a middle-ground case of SJS into raging toxic, terminal multiforme, is going to get your son _dead_, not better."

Wilson rubbed his face and sat back in his chair. His spine cracked and popped in protest of the too many hours spent there. "Barry's not improving, House. This might not be SJS, you said it yourself, that there was a possibility-"

"A _small_ possibility that it isn't Steven's. There's a larger probability that it is. Foreman is hoping it's an infection so he can get his score card back in the black, and I'm metaphorically referring to ink right now, 'cause I can't think of a good homie' joke."

"If it is an infection, which his white blood count suggests-"

"-it suggests equally SJS."

Wilson held up a hand. "If it _is_ an infection, and you only continue the SJS treatment, which we both know is barely a treatment- topical ointments, burn-wraps, high glucose sugar/salt IV's-"

"-Give them enough time, and it'll work."

"-_unless_ it's an infection. I don't think a small round of antibiotics will do harm at this stage. It can't make the Steven's any worse, and if it _is_ SJS as you insist, the antibiotics will prevent skin infections, which we both know are likely with Steven's."

House, almost reasonable up until this point, brought his cane down hard on the floor, making Wilson jump. "If you want Foreman treating your son, you're going to have to fire me."

The bang of the cane made Wilson jump a little in his chair, and House's ultimatum made him a little angry. He hadn't expect such so soon into the discussion, and it showed on his face. "Geez, House, this isn't about your ego is it? Oh, wait, it is. It's _always_ about that. My son's _life_ is at stake and you're worried about your goddamn rep'?"

House set his lip. Wilson knew that meant his words were making little impact. They hardly ever did. "Why the hell did you hire me to treat your son if you were just going to yank me back on the last fucking mile?" House shouted. "You don't have to do me any favors," House vaguely directed his left arm toward his office through the wall, "I've got plenty of cases on my desk. I'm doing this for two reasons - to save your kid's life if you'll let me, and because I lo-"

House clamped his mouth closed on the last words, too angry to allow them any air. House took a heavy, calming breath. "If you think Foreman's right, fine - go with his treatment, but that means I'm backing out from here on in. You can find someone else to clean up his mess."

Wilson shook his head, stunned. "Jesus Christ. This really _is_ about ego."

"It's about the _medicine_." House retorted. "If you think I'm right, then fire Foreman. You can't have it both ways. You can't have two divergent treatments. Unless you think it might be a good idea to cool Barry down a dozen degrees so you can _think_ it about some more?" House knew it was dirty pool mentioning Wilson's only contribution to Amber's treatment - making her colder.

"This has nothing to do with Amber, you jackass! And despite your brilliance, Amber _died_ - if you remember?"

"Yes, but I was still _right_." House underlined it. "It was just too late for her, but it's not too late for Barry."

Wilson knew, of course, that Amber's death had been out of House's control. This time, too, he _wanted_ to give in to House's experience and longer track record of being "right about the medicine". But he'd seen with his own eyes no improvement in Barry (who was _not_ in a coma and _not _unresponsive as Amber had been). There had also occurred no progression of the SJS with which House insisted his son was afflicted.

Wilson swallowed, preparing himself for the shouting that was sure to come. "I'm going to let Foreman have a shot." He said quietly. "What would predictably happen with the SJS has not happened. I'm sorry, House, I can't afford - my _son_ can't afford - to take that risk."

"Everything's conditional, even with disease. You're an oncologist, you _know_ that no two people respond the same way." House was desperate for Wilson to trust him on this. He wanted to bring this kid back from the brink as only he could; like (but unlike) he had with Amber. He wanted Wilson's good humor and goofy smile back. He wanted a lot of things. Mostly he wanted to save Wilson's son for him.

Wilson shook his head and sat down again. "No. I'm sorry. I've made my decision."

House didn't shout. He simply stared at Wilson for a few very disconcerting seconds.

Wilson became very uncomfortable under those twin blue bullets House called eyes. They were both physicians, and therefore both understood that almost everything in medicine contained some risk. It was the nature of the unpredictable beast that was the human body. House had convinced him it was SJS because he was _House_. But when House's theory seemed to be faltering, Foreman had then convinced him to try his suggestions of still precautionary but reasonably applied alternate treatment. Wilson felt guilty, not for seceding to Foreman's recommendations, but because he could see the hurt in House's face.

"You don't trust me anymore." House said.

"Of course I do."

"I mean medically."

"Stop taking this personally."

"What else could it be?" House countered. "Either I'm the same doctor I was last week and last year or I'm not. You thought so yesterday, only something's changed your mind since then, because today you think I'm screwing up."

If he were so inclined, Wilson knew he could argue both points, but he already had enough earth-shattering subjects for debate before him at the moment. Nor did he have secreted away some brilliant persuasion to convince House that he was wrong about what his best friend thought of his skills as a doctor.

But they all ought to be honest about it, shouldn't they? House _was_ different now. He was a schizophrenic. Within that medicated but essentially on-going mental state, could House really be the same doctor as he had been one year ago? Can a person's mind, even one as strong as he knew Gregory House's had been, become that ill without leaving behind some sort of _mark_?

House was still brilliant, but he was on some heavy medications. Medications were designed to altered the body's function. Schizophrenic medications were designed to alter the _minds_ function. Was House as mentally and medically as whole in thought as before his breakdown? Was he healed and if so how well? How does one measure soundness on a landscape as elusive as the human psyche?

Foreman had come to his home and discussed these matters with him; the medical matters regarding his son and regarding House's, in Foreman's opinion, questionable judgement. Often House's actions had been in question, though - recklessness, the flouting of regulations and the brushing off of the opposing opinions of the less qualified. But until this last terrible year, Wilson had never felt the sharp uneasiness about House's abilities as a physician, as he did now. It was a foreign, stranger's emotion. House _not _the right doc' for the job?

But since Foreman's visit, doubts fluttered about his head like moths.

Wilson could say none of this. He wanted House to understand, but without breaking his heart in the process. However, in his friend such a state was usually an impossible balance. All he could think to say was "I'm sorry."

House turned on his heel and gimped from the room.

"House." Wilson hated to leave it like that. "House!" His friend wasn't listening. Wilson could still hear his shuffling feet and cane, though, as all three humped quickly away down the hall.

So Wilson spoke to himself, all the frustration of the day trying to bolt from his chest in a single curse. _"Fuck!"_

It didn't satisfy.

-

-

"I'm sorry - Doctor..?"

House eyed Pediatric Isolations' newest and very nervous young nursing student.

"Doctor House." He said it as though everyone in the hospital not only knew it but were better off for doing so.

"Oh." A young dark-haired nurse said. The diminutive twenty-two year old of oriental background had heard of the doctor who had gone crazy. Everybody had. She was sure her training nurse had said that doctor's name was House. But she had also heard that House was veteran of PPTH, one of the Dean's favorite pets, and a genius. "What can I do for you, Doctor?"

Ah, youth. House thought, staring over her short self to Barry's bubble chamber. The child was asleep. The antibiotic feed had been added to his main picc-line, and the Foreman approved treatment begun. "Doctor Foreman sent me to check on his patient. He's tied up at the moment." House wasn't kidding. He had arranged an impromptu dinner date between Foreman and Thirteen via texting them both using a purchased disposable cell phone, employing an ID blocker.

Both Foreman and Thirteen were, at that moment, meeting at opposite ends of the city in respectively moderately priced restaurants, each waiting for the other tardy lover to show. House smiled as he imagined the argument that would erupt once they finally called each other. Or maybe the argument and then the make-up sex (in which Thirteen figured prominently). Whatever - as long as they were occupied elsewhere for an hour or so.

House knew nurse Nervous would swallow his bullshit excuse for being there immediately as all good, young, inexperienced nurses did. "_Remember, the doctors input the orders, we carry them out." "Do not question a doctor's orders, but try to assist him or her in whatever way you can." _All good habits of practice that met House's complete approval.

The young nurse handed him Barry's chart, and while House pretended to be reading over what he had already memorized, she busied herself with re-stocking Saline 1/3-1/2's, and Pediatric Nutren into the Med'/IV refrigerator. Her back was turned.

House pulled a bag of normal saline from his pocket. It was the same size and had almost exactly the same appearance as the bag of antibiotics, which he quickly disconnected from the toddler's glucose IV line. For twenty-four hours, no one ought to notice anything amiss.

Years of practice made him swift and silent at the subterfuge. House took a few seconds to ensure the piggy-back solution was flowing properly, then he stepped away from the bubble-chamber and buried his nose in the kid's chart once more, standing exactly where nurse Inexperienced had left him.

Nurse Nervous turned back. "Everything all right, Doctor?"

House nodded, handed her the chart with a satisfied nod. "Right as rain."

-

-

House answered his phone, sitting up, rubbing the sleep from his eyes and mentally prepping himself for the lengthy and voluminous chewing out Cuddy was about to give him.

He looked at the call display. It was Chase. _"Just thought you ought to know - Wilson's son died during the night."_

House stopped breathing for a moment, stared at the blank, white wall opposite his bed, just letting Chase talk on and on. He froze in time with the ten year old paint, a flat surface of blinding sameness, little flecks of it falling away here and there, to break up the slate. The way life let bits and pieces of you fall away.

_"Around four AM, his BP dropped. We got it back up with a saline infusion, but his white count was 16,000 per micro-litre. Looks like you were right. He had a reaction to the antibiotics Foreman put him on. Wilson's pretty broken up."_

When House heard nothing more for a few seconds, he realized Chase was waiting for _him_ to say something. "Had his papules spread, or gotten larger?"

On the other end of the line, Chase sounded disappointed at what he perceived as House's typical lack of feelings on behalf of his friend. "No, House, we didn't pull out the measuring tape or played connect-the-rash on Wilson's dead son." He sighed into the receiver and said in clipped tones. "Looks like I interrupted your beauty sleep - just figured you'd want to know what was going on with your best friend. Sorry - _my_ mistake." He hung up without another word.

House held the phone tightly to his ear, forgetting to replace it as his heart pounded a sickening rhythm against his chest wall. Drums of an end. No-no-no-no chants, railing against nothing that could change it back, and calling out in monotones to no-one who could alter this formidable ending to . . .well, everything.

Nothing at that moment made sense. Chase thought his old boss had been right about the antibiotics causing a reaction in Barry. However, Chase didn't know he was wrong about House being right. There had been no antibiotics; no rendered amount that would have done this. House had cleverly made sure of that.

Instead, Barry had died from an infusion of normal, innocuous saline solution that House had administered, proving that Barry had indeed had an infection. He had, in fact, died of that infection, because no antibiotics had been present in his system. House had snuck in and set Wilson's son on a quick road to death. House had been wrong about the child's illness, wrong about the treatment, and dead wrong about Foreman's so-called incorrect, reasonable, alternative therapy.

House had been so very, very wrong in every possible way, even the numbers lied.

House replaced the phone on its chargeable stand. He reached for his floor discarded jeans and shirt, so casually shed at the end of his clandestine mission.

Wilson was probably already back at the hospital, asking for him, or for a reason, or for the staff Rabbi. Or crying.

House's hands shook as he tied his sneaker laces. If dying changes everything, what does killing your best friend's _only son_ change?

XXXXXXXXXX

Part VIII asap


	8. Chapter 8

One Small Consequence

Part VIII

By GeeLady

Time-line: Post-season 6

Summary: Once is usually enough when cheating love. Relationship angst and a few other things, too.

Pairing: House/Wilson

Rating: NC-17, Adult, +18, Mature. Language. Sexual situations. SLASH.

Disclaimer: The guy with the cane and the hot a$$ doesn't belong to me, yadda, yadda...

_**THIS IS VERY LATE. SORRY - I'VE HAD AN AWFUL, AWFUL WEEK!!!**_

XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX

Standing outside Cuddy's glass doors, watching the woman who had fought for him for years against all others (and sometimes against common business sense), House felt a little guilty, as though he were betraying all the hard work she had done on his behalf.

Twelve years of her hard work he was about to make for naught, though the decision had practically made itself. Looking at her earnest and pretty face, none of his reasons seemed sufficient at the moment, at least not for her. For him it was clear. Wilson was right, he wasn't' the man he used to be, and Barry's death had nailed it home. Although the death of Wilson's kid was not the sole thing that had prompted this decision, it was in the top three. The second reason was Wilson himself, and the third was nestled in his left pocket.

House felt around in that pocket and withdrew his allotment of pills for that morning. Two anti-depressants, three types of non-narcotic analgesics designed to numb the pain in his leg (none of them succeeding in doing anything close to that), two anti-psychotics to control his schizophrenia and the hallucinations/psychosis that had driven him to treatment at a mental hospital for almost half of the previous year. And, last but not least, a roll of antacids to help his stomach cope with all the other stuff. A rainbow of colors in a mound in one hand designed to help him function (they had told him) almost as he used to, before his mental breakdown. _Sunshine, lollipops and rainbows. Everything that's wonderful is sure to come your way when you're in love . . ._

Over the last year House had grown used to the ritual; the daily swallowing of pill after pill - he'd had lots of practice. He'd come to spend so much time at Wilson's apartment, he'd gradually brought his things over, and now he wanted to stay. Part of staying and not screwing up his only second relationship on record was swallowing those pills when he was supposed to. Two of this pill BID PO morning and night, three pain-killers every four to six PO with food, one anti-psychotic daily alone or with food. His fingers knew the bottles blindly; by weight, circumference, rattle, without even thinking about it anymore. Just throw back his head and pop, pop, pop, pill after pill, with no consideration what it might be doing to him, other than keeping him in a stable two-man love-in, and from acting profoundly nuts.

The necessary routine of the medications had become habit, so much a part of his day that they seemed innocuous. Until the events of the last few days, he had not truly considered the long-term implications about what they might do to his thinking, and that scared him more than the murderous Amber of his schizophrenic nightmare. Was he a doctor who had been a mental patient, or a mental patient playing doctor?

That pretty pile of pills had helped him make this decision the moment he had learned that Barry had died.

Cuddy was sitting inside in her office wearing a pretty pink blouse, leaning over her desk reading something that was making her forehead wrinkle, oblivious to his stare. When she looked up and saw it was House entering her office, she said "There's going to be an autopsy."

House nodded, gimped slowly to the chair opposite where she sat behind her desk, removed his jacket and sat down with a heavy plop. Cuddy's eyes were tired looking and decorated with bags beneath. A few gentle waves were out of place on her head of dark hair, and her un-tucked blouse held the tell-tail wrinkles that told of a comforting post-hug given to a friend.

Wilson had gone to her crying over Barry, not to him. Of course not to him. He may be a pill-popping _anti_-psychotic, but he was still a jerk.

"That won't be necessary." House announced as he sat.

Cuddy looked up sharply at him. He appeared to have gotten less sleep than she had. He was properly dressed at least, if the jeans faded (his _weekend_ jeans she noticed, not his slightly more professional looking five days of the week jeans), and a wrinkled button up cotton shirt over a rock band tee-shirt with a coffee stain could be described as dressed. At least his hair was combed. "Why wouldn't it be necessary?"

"I know why he died."

Cuddy looked back down to the paper-work Wilson had left with her, since Barry's mother was no where to be found, Wilson had added his signature to the bottom, stating an autopsy was to go ahead under his authority as biological father. "Of course you do, Chase called you. He called Wilson, me and Foreman."

Busy little bush-kangaroo. Probably carries his cell phone into the operating room. For some reason, Chase's attention to professional details suddenly bothered him. "Yes, but Chase is wrong about why Barry is dead."

Cuddy stared at him now, interested. "You have a better theory than SJS shocked to toxic multiforme by an antibiotic infusion?"

House leaned forward on his cane. He had typed out a fast resignation and it was in his pocket, along with the other papers that still sat there, which he had been transferring back and forth from his desk to his pocket to his home and back again. He didn't know what the hell to do with them now. It wasn't something he wanted anymore he didn't think. And Wilson, once he learned why Barry had succumbed, would now look at them, and him, with venom. Maybe even try and burn them. Or him.

"He didn't die of toxic shock. I know this because he didn't get any antibiotics last night. Not enough to cause that."

Her eyes narrowed, then widened as the thought dawned on her just possibly why House might know such a detail that no one else was aware of. She shook her head. "House,...you didn't, did you?" She sat back in her chair, suddenly fatigued beyond belief, angry and sad beyond comprehension. "Please say you didn't."

House nodded. "Okay, I'll say it, but that won't make it true."

"You _did??"_ She closed her eyes. "My god, you did. You went against Wilson's decision, Barry's _father's_ decision, and you changed the drugs, or switched them - diluted them, or some other unbelievably culpable, _stupid_ thing, just so you could test your own theory."

House took offense at that. "It was not just to test my theory. My diagnosis was sound." Switching his eyes from her to his cane, a House-specific gesture for _I screwed up_, he added " - I _thought_."

Cuddy huffed. "Right, it was to save a life, to be the great doctor." She thrust flat hands piled with his past invisible infractions at him. "Bullshit! It was to solve the damn puzzle." She shook her head. "And now the patient is dead. Wilson's _son_, House. First Amber and now his son. Do you have any idea what this is personally going to do him? And to you? Not to mention that it might just be the end of your career, maybe criminal charges - maybe _jail_."

House nodded again. He dug around in his pocket and handed her a folded sheet. "Yes, which is why I brought my resignation. I'm sure the Board will want an immediate dismissal. This will save them the time and you the scandal. Your hospital will keep its shining reputation."

House was part of that reputation. "House, maybe we can find some legal-" Cuddy knew the suggestion was almost useless and would be rejected as such. It had been a stupid thing to do, but not that much more stupid than some of the other things he had done to perpetuate her headaches and her private view that House, although a genius, was mad as a hatter. An image of House rotting in a mental institution brought a wave of guilt over that last thought. Damn the man for evoking her sympathy without so much as a goddamn pout on his lips.

"-There is no legal _anything _for this." He slipped his jacket back on.

Cuddy sat back in her chair again, defeated as to action. "What are you going to tell Wilson?"

House stood. "The truth. Wilson will want to see me, if not dead, then,...well actually - probably dead."

"Right. Because it's _a-l-l_ about what's going to happen to _you." _Cuddy rubbed her temples. "Jesus, House, you might have just ruined your whole life this time. And his."

House nodded. "I've only ruined his temporarily." He looked at the handle of his cane. May as well tell her all of the reasons why - she'll see this was the best decision and even one based upon surprisingly sound reason, for a crazy man. "I think Wilson was right. Maybe this was all ego. Ego and pills." He said quietly, as though confessing to her. He didn't have anyone else on which to pour out his sins. "I wanted to save that kid for Wilson."

Cuddy dismissed his confession as mere enthusiasm. "Despite your less than friendly attitude toward them, you always want to save your patients."

He shook his head. '"That's not what I mean. _I_ wanted to save him for Wilson. _Me_, not Foreman. It was more about my own needs than the patients."

"Stop this." Cuddy said sharply. "Stop trying to convince me that you're even more of a jerk than you really are. I've never known you to practice medicine to fill a score card. This latest stunt was because you couldn't save Amber, so you were desperate to save Barry. But you put your life on the line for Amber. You _care_."

"No. I put myself on the line for _Wilson_."

"House, this is the first mistake since you've been back. You can't willingly end your career over one error."

"It wasn't an error, it was a judgment made for personal reasons."

"Nonsense."

"Name one time I put my own agenda ahead of a patients life."

"Easy. You walked out on a patient because Wilson was leaving. You were trying to make him stay."

"That's my point. I abandoned a patient for Wilson. Whenever he's in the mix, I screw up. Wilson screws me up. I always suspected."

"You mean you only took Barry's case because you were trying to prove your worth?"

House shrugged.

She sighed, hoping for something, anything to occur to her so she could reverse where she saw this was going. "This doesn't have to end your career. You'll be disciplined. Wilson wouldn't-"

House shrugged. "-What would you do if it was Rachael lying in the morgue?"

Cuddy caught her breath. She would . . .she didn't know. If she was honest with herself, she would have him fired, maybe have him charged. She lied. "I don't know."

"Sure you do. All I know is last year I had a psychological break. I'm on half a dozen different medications and if my judgement over this case was personal, then medically my judgement can't be trusted. I'm not sure anymore whether I did this because the kid's treatment was coming from Foreman and I thought it was wrong, or because it _wasn't_ coming from me."

Cuddy felt helpless. She shook her head because there was nothing else she could do. "I think you're over-reacting. You seem _fine_."

House shook his head slowly. Cuddy was trying to sooth. It wouldn't work, not this time. "No. Maybe I was fine a few months ago-"

"Please think about this. This is the first case you've lost, and the first stupid thing you've done since you were released from Mayfield. For nearly a year that's not bad."

"Those wins might have been just a good team saving my ass, and as a doctor I can't afford to be _that_ not sure." He abandoned his cane handle to look straight at her. "Not even with one case. I don't want to kill anyone else."

Cuddy stood and came around her desk to stand close to him. In the past, it would have made him sit up and listen a little harder. Today it made him feel sorry for her, because despite what she'd just heard she was fighting for him, but it was the wrong battle to pick. She had already lost.

"Oh, stop with all this psycho-analytical, self-depreciating crap, House. It doesn't sound like you at all." It was meant to both scold and reassure.

For House it sent the message back that he was correct in his fears about himself. He _didn't_ sound like himself at all. He hadn't _thought_ like himself. He _wasn't_ himself. Not anymore. House closed his eyes. It had been a good run. He whispered. "I _know_."

Cuddy folded her hands in front of her. "Forget what I said. Please don't do this - not yet. Not until we're sure."

"I'm sure. Where is he?"

He meant Wilson. "He's in the morgue."

-

-

Wilson turned his head when House entered. "Foreman told me he discovered the saline. You'd removed the antibiotic treatment. I knew it was you. It's always you."

House knew it was pointless to try and explain. Wilson was the only reason he'd done anything on the case. "I'm sorry. I thought Foreman was wrong." That wasn't the truth but nothing he could say now would change the fact that Wilson's son was dead.

"Yeah. What is it you always say about _I'm sorry_? That the words are meaning-less?" Wilson drew something from his pocket and held it between two fingers, turning it over. "I got you this for our second anniversary. I was worried you'd laugh or something, or make a joke about what a girly fag I was."

House shrugged. "Probably." That's how he flirted.

Wilson turned and threw it at House, the tiny object bouncing off the autopsy table between them and hitting his bottom lip, then careening off to a corner with a clinking sound of soft metal on tile. "Happy anniversary!" He walked quickly from the room.

House probed the blood on his lip with one finger as he limped over to retrieve the object.

It was a ring. A wide band of high karat gold with two emerald-cut blue diamonds in-laid side by side next to two Tiger's Eye stones. Very expensive and tasteful. Brown and blue stones. Girly and sentimental. Very Wilson. House stuffed it in his pocket.

-

-

Cameron accosted Foreman, her former fellow _fellow. _"Did the medical examiner take tissue samples for infection?"

Foreman sighed. Cameron was married to Chase, but no one ever thought that meant she hadn't stopped being in love (at least to some extent) with House. "No. It wasn't necessary. House confessed and resigned."

"No tests on the tissue? Then how can anyone be sure House was wrong?"

"Because he didn't do anything _right._ Chase told Cuddy, she told Wilson, and I told everyone else. If he hadn't changed out the antibiotics, Wilson's son would still be alive."

"So no one's confirmed that there was any systemic infection at all?"

"There was infection present on the surface pustules - that's what a pustule is. His white count was elevated. Extra tests would have been redundant and taken a week. Wilson doesn't want to wait any longer to bury his only child."

"By all means, an extra day or two is far too much to waste when it's a man's _life!"_

Her sarcasm was lost on Foreman. "Glad you agree."

"So what you're telling me is no one knows for sure?"

"No, what I'm telling you is that it was a reasonable diagnosis."

"Based on this less-than-certain conclusion. Foreman, House has resigned. This is his life we're talking about."

"Look, everyone knows you're still in lov-"

"-No I'm not."

"It's his career - not his life."

"It's the same thing and you know it. If no one took the time to make sure of systemic infection, then the medical examiners conclusions are meaningless. Unless you're resisting making a confirmation because you can't wait until it's just _your_ name on House's office door?"

Foreman scribbled some words on a pad and gave it to her. "Fine. Wilson granted me post-mortem proxy over his son's body. You have my permission to run some tissue samples - for all the good it'll do - for an infection that isn't there. Better hurry." He said as Cameron snatched the paper and walked swiftly away. "House is flying out on Saturday."

-

-

Wilson purchased a powder blue casket with white lilies and otherwise arranged a very beautiful, tragically somber funeral for the son he had known less than two months. Janele made an appearance but escaped before Wilson had a chance to speak to her.

Wilson watched her leap into a cab before he got within fifty feet. He had no idea why she had abandoned her son to House or him, or why she no longer wanted to speak to him. Prior to that, Janele had insisted Barry needed a father and that she and Wilson could possibly be compatible, but Wilson had only been interested in the first part. But now that her son was dead, there would be no needed father and no maintenance for him to pay. Janele certainly didn't appear to be attracted to him now, so perhaps the money angle had been her sole reason for contacting him to begin with, like House had said.

The thought of House elicited a weird mix of righteous fury and lonely desire in his chest. Weirdly enough, it was the same sensations he had often felt toward House over the years. Odd that the loss of Barry had altered that to so little a degree. House was like a grown child, so self-determined and so blind to him own faults - a wayward orphan running around stealing apples. Wilson wondered how so a rebellious a man had sprung from such a disciplined home-life as House's military-dad-inspired one.

Wilson also wondered just how House was doing. After their last argument, and his own shameful outburst, he had not spoken to House for many days. He'd taken grievance time off work, and tomorrow was Saturday. There was only the weekend to try and come to terms with what House had done and see if something couldn't be salvaged of them - the friendship, if not the love affair, once Wilson made up his mind that that's what he actually wanted.

But he was tired now. In fact he was fatigued to the point of weakness. He could hardly strap himself into his car. The drive home was on auto-pilot. Miraculously he made it all the way without running anyone over or wrapping his car around a light-standard.

Too tired to even shower, Wilson crawled under the covers and was asleep in seconds.

-

-

House faxed his resignation to Cuddy, just in case she had decided to rip up the one he had hand delivered, and put most of his prized things in storage, like the piano and his guitar and record collections. He'd take a couple of months, travel to New York, Boston, maybe even Miami, until he decided what to do job-wise. House supposed he could hire himself out as a diagnostic consultant, provided Cuddy managed to talk Wilson into not doing his utmost to smash his career into un-fixable smithereens. But he wasn't going to count on it.

House sipped barely passable coffee from a paper cup. His plane was due to board in one hour and he had read every newspaper the airport kiosks subscribed to, and now he was bored. Fingering his boarding pass, he touched another folded set of papers in his coat pocket. Drawing them out, he ran his fingers over their surface. Once smooth, now coffee spills and much thumbing of their edges had turned them into mere curiosities, old advertising material someone had forgotten about. House thought of tossing them in the garbage. In fact, slinging his one travel bag over his shoulder, he limp-walked them to the nearest trash can, but at the last second something held his hand, telling him no.

It was the second time he had decided against getting rid of them. Wilson hadn't even seen them, and wouldn't now. There was no _point_ in keeping them. House looked at them, not opening the folded edge, not studying for the hundredth time their contents - there was no need. He knew every detail by memory many times over. He'd, in secrecy, enjoyed many hours looking them over, and others too, until deciding on just this one particular set of papers with the colored pictures.

Papers that meant the future, and pictures that meant peace. Now just coffee stained pulp he ought to throw out. But House instead placed them back in his pocket. It hurt to think that Wilson would never see them.

When House had made up his mind about Wilson, it had terrified and thrilled him all at once. So this is what it felt like to "make plans". The words Stacey had used once or twice, the words Wilson had insisted were good words, words to be pursued and embraced.

House thought wryly of how useless those plans would have turned out. Even if the baby-maker hadn't shown up on their doorstep with Wilson's latest Whoops, House would have learned of Wilson infidelity eventually, and all motions toward planning anything would have gone out the window and over the fence.

Just like it had done.

House returned to his seat only to find a mom and her brood of three planted in them with the look of permanence. House found another between a sleeping business traveler and a pretty young fake blonde with aqua colored contacts. She smiled sweetly at him as he eased himself down into the discomfort of the airport standard hard-on-your-ass plastic chair.

House smiled back briefly, then turned his thoughts inward. He was sure it had been Steven's. The symptoms were not absolutely text-book but so close as to be negligible. Even the lack of progression of the symptoms could have been mitigated by several factors, the kid's degree of allergy versus allergy resistance. The SJS had been relatively mild. Why in the hell had he gotten so much worse so fast? How the hell, with twenty-five years of doctoring behind him, could he have missed the mark that widely? How had he gotten it all so wrong? Then he remembered the bottles of pills rattling around in his shaving kit inside his duffel bag.

Oh, yeah.

-

-

Wilson rolled over, glancing with crusted eyes at his bedside radio clock - 11:10 AM. He had slept like the dead all night and most of the morning. Still he felt tired. Recent events had taken a lot out of him. Not only him, he supposed. Amidst all the stress and upset, Wilson felt his habitual nature asserting itself in a keen need for two things: a desire to smooth things over with House, (no matter what lame-brained or heartless thing the idiot had done), and the deep body ache for a really good lay.

He wasn't likely to manage either one today.

The phone trilled next to his ear. Gotta' learn to turn the bedroom ringer off when he was on leave. "Hello?"

"Wilson?"

Cameron's voice.

"Um, yes." Weird - her calling him on a Saturday. "What's going on?"

"I ran some tissue samples on your son. And before you get all huffy, just liste-"

Too late.

"-What the hell for??"

"Shut-up and listen to me. There was no infection. Do you understand? Barry did not die of a systemic infection."

Wilson held his breath. That was impossible. Foreman and his team (also weird to think of them now as _Foreman's_ team) confirmed it, didn't they? "Then what did he die of?"

"I don't know, but I ran the samples twice, and Foreman now agrees with me. No infection in his tissues. High white count, yes, but _not_ from infection." She was quiet for a moment before adding. "Maybe you should tell House."

Nothing ever stayed the same but got crazier. Such is the game called life. "Maybe I should."

"You don't have much time. House's plane leaves at 1:00."

Wilson replaced the receiver. House was flying out today because he had resigned, put most of his good furniture in storage and was leaving. Wilson looked at his clock again. 11:17 AM. House would be gone, very, very soon, who knows where.

Wilson dialed a cab with shaking fingers, and slipped into his discarded black funeral pants from yesterday. He slipped on a white tee-shirt, for-went socks altogether, instead wedging his feet into some brown leather casuals. He knew he looked unfashionably thrown together. House would be proud, if he could catch him, and if House would be willing to speak to him.

Wilson had let himself become balled up in misery once more over the loss of someone he had barely known. Amber, four months. Barry - two. House, almost two dozen years. You hurt the one you loved. The one you loved most. _Son-of-a-bitch-en-fucking-damn-hell!_ "Why-why-why do I keep _doing _this?"

_I love him. But I needed to punish someone._ A flash came to him that he had wanted someone else to hurt with anguish and shame as he was. the anguish, losing a son, even one he had only known less than a month, and shame, because he was so bound up in it for cheating on House, he could hardly stand himself. _So, yeah, make House pay for my own AWOL penis. Good one, Wilson. When's your next therapy session? Better make it soon. _

Wilson ran fingers through his uncombed hair and paced his door step, every-so-often looking up the street. It was just after mid Saturday morning, there shouldn't be a delay in service at this hour. But even if there was, it would still be faster than driving to the airport, trying to find a spot among the million acres of parking lot, only to wave goodbye as House's plane taxied down the runway.

For the first time in over a decade, Wilson felt like a cigarette. Muttering to himself and cursing all slow, overly cautious taxi-drivers "Where the hell is it?"

-

-

House occupied the time by bouncing his green ball from his hands to the floor and back. He was leaned over, elbows resting on his knees, so the ball wouldn't have to bounce far. Dribble-dribble-dribble...it helped drown out the snoring old fellow three seats over and the shrill, complaining grate of the mid-life wife asking her husband why they couldn't have gone first class. The husband had his head stuck behind a magazine, doing his best to drown her out too.

A shadow blocked out the light and a brown leather shoe tapped his ball once, sending it rolling off under a nearby unoccupied chair.

"Hey-" House looked up.

Wilson looked down. "Hey."

House let Wilson retrieve the ball for him and also let him sit down beside him. Wilson had made it with twenty minutes to spare. He decided to cut to the quick. "I don't want you to go."

"I don't want to stay."

"House, Barry didn't die of an infection. There's no reason for you to go."

House was quietly surprised to hear it. "How do they know?"

"Cameron ran more tests. No infection."

"So I didn't screw up, but only by accident."

"Barry's death wasn't your fault."

"Good to know, but that's still no reason for me to stay."

Wilson leaned in closer, daring House to look him in the eye. "I love you. I don't want you to leave. Let me make all this up to you. I know I keep saying that-"

"-just wish you'd start doing it."

"Whatever you want me to do, I'll do it. I'm sorry."

House blew air through puffed out cheeks. "I want you to think more of me than you do."

Wilson wasn't sure what that meant. "Do you mean-?"

"I mean stop using my failures as an excuse to get out of the relationship. You're still broken, still scared of commitment. I'm not sure that can ever be fixed."

"You're still afraid to tell me how you feel."

House put the ball in his pocket. "I _show_ you how I feel."

Wilson nodded. It was true, House was very affectionate - when it suited him. "Call me lame, but I need to hear it, too."

House tilted his head so he could see Wilson up close, almost eye to eye. "You _are _lame." He looked away. "Did Cameron say how Barry did die?"

"They don't know, but it wasn't infection. Even if you hadn't changed out the antibiotics for saline, he would still probably be dead. I won't be bringing charges, in case you're wondering. Cuddy is going to mark it down as a case of mistaken prescription but one caught quickly enough. Also that the treatment was ultimately ineffective."

House raised his eyebrows. "Cuddy's going to falsify records for me? Well, that tells us something, doesn't it?"

"What?"

"That she still has the hot's for me."

"She knows you're strictly hands-off. Except for _my_ hands." It should be true again. It will be real again. He loved House too much to give up.

House nodded, smiling just a little. Then, very gently "I'm sorry about your son."

"I know. You were right all along. It was probably Steven's."

House looked at Wilson full on for the first time since he'd sat down in the chair next to him; for the first time in over a week, actually. "You look terrible."

"I feel terrible. I'm so worn out, I feel dopey."

House raised his head up, turned it forty-five degrees and stared into Wilson's under-bagged brown eyes with an evident glow of enlightenment in his own sparkling blues. "Dopey?"

"Yeah, tired." But Wilson knew that look. "What's going on in there?" Meaning House's mind.

"Doped." House said, then muttered under his breath too low for Wilson to make out more than a word or two. "Goddamn son-of-a-whore-"

House stood up, shocking Wilson out of his restful stupor. "What?"

House jerked his head at his slow friend. "Come on. Stand up."

Wilson obeyed. "House. I want to talk about us some mo-"

House dismissed that with an impatient shake of his head. "Later." Then, to Wilson's shock, House took his friend's face between his hands and kissed him hard on the mouth in front of everyone nearby bored enough to pay attention.

Wilson enjoyed the kiss, then reluctantly pulled back. "What was that for?"

"For the epiphany - what else?" Then without a pause of warning, House hauled back his right fist and slammed it into Wilson's jaw, making him stagger back and plop down hard on his backside. Stunned for a second or two, Wilson started rubbing his sore jaw, staring at House with bugged eyes, his expression nestled between hurt and complete astonishment. "And what the hell was _that_ for!?"

House grimaced at the pain, shaking out his stinging knuckles, and spending a second sucking on the especially painful middle one. "For cutting my lip and making me doubt myself."

A security guard who had witnessed the odd-ball exchange marched over. House waved him off with an open palm of peace. "It's okay officer . . ." House explained politely. ". . . he won't press charges."

With his cane's rubber tip, House gestured toward his bruised partner who had become the most interesting piece of art in the whole place. He was drawing a crowd with his long legs splayed out on the floor, sitting up on one hand while holding his aching jaw in the other, and glaring knives of annoyance up at him.

" We're in love."

XXXXXXXX

Part IX asap

_**MY DEAR READERS:**_ I've received many messages from worried readers that One Small Consequence is on a path of total destruction (of one sort or another) regarding H/W. PLEASE do not assume anything at this point.

The only certainty right now is that - yes - Barry is really dead. Some of you were disappointed by this, but it was necessary (in my opinion) to have it happen in order to advance the story the way I wanted it to go.

I'm not against stories of H/W raising kids - not at all (if you're unsure about that, go read my Gone With the World series - it's an Mpreg, and House ends up with close to a dozen kids!), but a child-adoption-plot was something I just didn't require in _this_ story.

I hope you will continue to give One Small Consequence the benefit of the doubt.

Your grateful story teller,

Genie


	9. Chapter 9

One Small Consequence

Part IX

By GeeLady

Time-line: Post-season 6

Summary: Once is usually enough when cheating love. Relationship angst and a few other things, too.

Pairing: House/Wilson

Rating: NC-17, Adult, +18, Mature. Language. Sexual situations. SLASH.

Disclaimer: The guy with the cane and the hot a$$ doesn't belong to me, yadda, yadda...

XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX

House hailed a cab and Wilson paid for it. In moments they were back at Wilson's apartment. "What are you talking about? Stop being so enigmatic, it's not sexy."

House hobbled through Wilson's designer foyer and shed his coat on the entrance table. "What do you remember about your date with Toxic Whore?"

Wilson toed off his shoes and glowered at House until he did the same. "I told you, almost nothing."

House followed him into the kitchen where Wilson scooped coffee into his automatic drip machine. "Tell me the almost, then." House asked. "What _do_ you remember?"

"I remember her talking to me at the bar, I remember having a few drinks-"

"-How many drinks?"

"I don't know." Wilson pulled cups down from the cupboard.

House followed him around the kitchen like a terrible two-year old. "How many that you _remember_?"

"Four, maybe five. Get the cream, will you?"

House opened the fridge and handed Wilson the first thing that looked like a milk carton. "Any of 'em doubles?"

"No, _I_ like my liver." Wilson looked at the carton. "This is orange juice."

House snatched it back and managed the correct colored fluid the second time. "So, you can only remember five drinks?"

"Yes. I can't handle my liquor, I admit it. Can we move on to my better qualities?"

"If I find any, I'll let you know. Besides, that's not the point. The drinks I mean."

Wilson set sugar and spoons out on the table. "Then what is the point? And I mean the drinks."

"Five drinks is not enough for a black-out, not even with your tender tummy."

Wilson stopped making like it was tea-time and looked directly at him. "What are you getting at?"

"You may have cheated on me, but it wasn't on purpose." House limped to where he'd left his coat. Wilson followed. "House, what are you-?"

House fished around in the pockets until he found his cellular phone, pulling it out, and dialing. "I'm calling someone."

"Calling who and what does that have any-?" Along with his phone had popped out a thick folded paper, which fell to the floor. Not noticing, House began speaking into his phone.

Wilson bent down and rescued House's paper, his fingers mindlessly unfolding it while his mouth was still moving. "-talking about? Tell me the mystery of the drinks." Once he had straightened out the wrinkled pulp in his hands, Wilson forgot all about his own questions and examined the paper more closely. His curiosity turned to confusion, then a slow blue dawn of enlightenment fell across his face.

"House? . . ." He thrust the paper gently at his former lover, though keeping his fingers curled tightly around it, for he recognized it as a treasure that must not be lost. Wilson already understood what it was, but he needed to hear it from House. "What is this?" House was right. For him, hearing the words made emotions more real.

Just as House closed his phone, his eye caught what Wilson was looking at. When he realized what, he quickly reached out to snatch it back. "That's none of your business."

Wilson pulled it out of his way, keeping one step ahead of House as he left the entrance-way and circled the living-room with the unexpected find, House always one step behind him.

House was puffing. "Hey, I'm a cripple, remember?"

"House,..." Wilson turned, making House almost run into him, but still he kept the paper out of his reach. "House," Wilson repeated softly, as though seeing his friend for the first time. "You were-? Was this-?" Wilson stared at House, feeling such a surge of love, it scared him.

Wilson's eyes returned to the wrinkled, coffee-stained paper in his hand. House must have kept this for months in his pocket, on his desk, in his desk, on his car's dashboard. It was dusty, stained with beverage rings and cheese-pizza greasy smears, its edges wrinkled. But it was still beautiful.

Wilson re-read again some of its details. The paper was a pamphlet of a dwelling up for sale only one neighborhood over. A small ranch-style, two bedroom older house with gray painted siding, navy trim and a single car garage. Wilson skimmed some of the details, then looked back up at House, who appeared very uncomfortable, keeping his eyes glued to the stolen paper under lowered brows, waiting until he could take the vile truth the thing had just revealed and hide it away again. It was his House-vulnerable-angry face.

Wilson was almost speechless. The pamphlet made his heart ache, but in a good way. God - it was nice to feel it. He parroted again "House-"

House snatched the paper from his hand and this time Wilson let him have it. House abruptly turned on his heel and gimped to the door, slipping on his coat, gripping the embarrassing paper into an accordion in his tight fist. Wilson knew House meant to burn the thing and never speak of it again.

When House fished his keys out of pocket, making all the motions of yanking open the door and stomping away, Wilson grabbed his hand and took the keys. "That was your anniversary present to me?"

An older but clean looking, ranch-style house for two. A three bedroom, trimmed yard, damn nice little house for _them_. House's gift to him was to have been House's unspoken statement of commitment. You don't buy a house for someone you're not sure about. House sure as hell didn't, because the man had hardly ever bought anything in his life except guitars and beer. _Stacey_ hadn't gotten a house. Wilson all at once felt like a giddy school boy, high with his first crush and like an ungrateful heel. "I don't know what to say."

House frowned, the moment was getting far too emotional for his taste. "You can say nothing." He fisted the papers, waving them around. "This _means_ nothing. We're not together anymore, remember?"

Though for the last several months the offer had remained un-presented, Wilson was overwhelmed with the gesture, and the meaning behind House's phenomenal gift. Living together. Commitment. Not just a lengthy affair but a loving partnership. A home. It was House's way of speaking of a future together. It was House language for _I want to love you and be with you forever_. It was an offering with so much more depth than a boxed gift or the words of affection Wilson himself so often liked to say.

The paper with the pictures on it of the tasteful little house offered him everything all at once without a word spoken. Ignoring House's last statement, Wilson felt inadequate next to the gift's importance. "House, this, this is so . . .I, I don't deserve it."

House, in an effort to dilute the thickly swirling feelings hemming him in, frowned. "No, you don't." A half serious attempt at righteous anger that ultimately fell flat. House furiously folded the paper he now saw as offensive; the tiny missive that had shouted all to Wilson precisely when House hadn't wanted to. House was exposed and Wilson knew that was a state almost intolerable to House. It was one of the few things that scared the hell out of him.

Ignoring the averted scowl on his lover's face, Wilson quickly leaned in to steal a hungry kiss, pushing House against the small entrance table, shifting it a foot or two. Wilson wanted to swallow and save House from that fear once and for all.

House protested under Wilson's insistent lips, then gradually gave in and started kissing him back. In less than a minute, two sets of feet were blindly stumbling down the hallway and into the bedroom.

Wilson divested himself of clothing and did the same to House as fast as he could move his hands. The fly on House's jeans got stuck and solicited a chuckle from him as Wilson yanked brutally on it until it gave. The rest of House's clothing was more cooperative and he was naked in under a minute.

In moments Wilson was laying on his left side and pulling House down close to him, until their bodies were flush. Mindful of House's painful right thigh, he draped one slender leg over House's hip. Keeping his partner's mouth occupied with his own, he fumbled for House's slowly hardening penis with one hand, then directed House's to his own, slicking both up in the process with a few mouth-fulls of spit.

Wilson slowed his fevered movements and took his time tasting the lips he had missed so much, and fondling the many other special parts of his lover. "I love you so much, and I'm so sorry."

House murmured an "Uh humph." Then said against Wilson's constantly moving mouth "Just shut up and make with the making-out."

-

-

Wilson rolled over to find the other side of his bed empty. He sat up on his elbows, his back protesting the sudden movement with a few pops. He wasn't getting any younger, but the sex they'd shared the previous night was worth a working spine. "House?"

He could hear the shuffle-_thunk_ of House's particular gate and House entered the bedroom carrying a cup of what Wilson could smell was coffee. "You made coffee?"

"I made me a coffee."

Yes, things were back to normal. "What time is it?"

"Day time."

"And Sunday." Wilson leered. House had pulled on a pair of Wilson's pajama bottoms but was wearing nothing else. "Come back to bed."

House shook his head. "Got things to do."

"What?"

"Solving the mystery of your cheating heart."

Wilson frowned, his mood quickly souring. "Last night you said I didn't cheat."

"No, last night I said you didn't cheat on purpose."

"So..." Wilson pushed himself into a sitting position. His mouth watered at the smell of the coffee. Also at the fresh smell of shampoo and soap on House. He had obviously been up for a while and had already showered. Leaving behind House's cryptic refusal to provide any clear meaning behind his words, "...what things do you have to do?"

"Leave that to me. But I'm going to need you as chauffeur."

"Can't I just drop you home - what's wrong with your car?"

"It's not my car, it's my leg."

Wilson quickly nodded. Last night had been a two-man ruckus of urgent making-up-for-lost-time sex. House's leg had to be feeling the after-burn. "Sorry."

House sipped his coffee. "Not your fault. Now, you smell like sex, so get up, have a shower and get dressed."

Once Wilson was tucked under the warm spray, House pulled out his cell phone once more and dialed. This time a real person and not an answering machine spoke in his ear.

"Lucas? It's House. I have a job for you." There was a small pause while Lucas sorted through his memory or his files. "_Hello-o_??" House said impatiently. "Listen - there's a toxic whore named Janele Nordrick I need you to find. No, I'm not _horny_ - she's your assignment. Is a cheque okay?" House scowled into his phone. "Cash it is." House gave him further instructions and by the time he'd hung up, Wilson was padding barefoot from the bathroom wrapped in a towel.

House tried not to look him up and down with too obvious appreciation.

But Wilson did not miss his lover's glance. However, there were other things on the menu for today other than screwing each other crazy. "Who was that on the phone?"

House didn't answer directly. "I don't think you cheated on purpose because you were drugged at the time."

Wilson blinked, then shook his head. He pulled on a pair of jeans. "As much as I'd love to latch onto that as an excuse for my behavior, there's no way. I know the symptoms of an ingestion of the date-rape drug."

House looked a little surprised. "Is that how you managed to bed all those women? And here I thought it was your good looks, charm and bank account."

With a slightly indignant smirk, "No, that's why I managed to bed you, only the reasons in reverse. I'm a doctor, House, I don't have to be a victim of date-rape to know what to look for."

"Don't be an idiot. When you're in your right head and standing as the person who was _not_ just date-raped, you know what to look for. When you're the date-rape-ee, you don't even know what to think, or how to think."

Wilson frowned, but the possibility that it really may have happened grew in his mind. If House thought it was true, in all likelihood, it probably was. Suddenly he was feeling a little sick to his stomach. "You really think I was raped?" It was an all new, awful sensation. Unpleasant didn't cover it.

House was staring at him, a little disconcertingly. Then he shrugged. "Ironically, as bad as that is, it did lead to one very good thing."

Wilson couldn't think of a single good thing that had happened over the last several months. "What the hell would that be?"

"I think you finally figured out that you really do love me."

Wilson liked to finally hear the word from House's mouth rather than his own. "Of course I do. Um,..." Wilson decided to walk the ragged edge of disaster and ask "Why do _you_ suddenly think that I think that?" May as well ask the diagnostician he was in love with. He himself had felt that love and said it. But for it to be real for House, it took a unique set of circumstances and/or perspective.

"Back in the airport when I kissed you in public, in front of all those strangers, it was the first time you didn't look embarrassed." In his voice there was revelation and acceptance. House pressed his lips together in a controlled, thin-lipped smile. "It's a start."

-

-

"So what does this mean?" Wilson steered his car through Sunday afternoon traffic - a far more relaxing experience than the Monday morning rush that was coming.

House was in a funk, obviously trying to work something out in his head. "What does what mean?"

"Us. You. Me. Are we okay?"

"It means we still don't know what killed your son."

Wilson sighed at House's evasion of the more personal subject for discussion. For now, he went along with it. "You said it was Steven's."

House just shook his head, distracted by his unvoiced thoughts.

Wilson pulled into the hospital parking lot. "Why are we here? Neither of us works today."

"This is where I do my best thinking." House walked away as fast as his damaged leg would let him.

Wilson got out of the car. "House, I'm wearing jeans, and you didn't answer my question."

House turned, squaring his shoulders. Never a good sign. "We had sex. You love me. All good, Wilson, but you're still broken. Just because you didn't cheat doesn't mean you won't. Go see your therapist."

Wilson slammed his door. "Hold on. I had the opportunity to cheat but I didn't."

"We don't know that for certain. You may still have cheated without the Ketamine chaser. You still went to a bar to cry on someone's else's shoulder because of one fight."

Wilson was tired of being blamed for everything. "You were doing so well off the Vicodin. Your pain was manageable."

House walked back, right up close and stuck his face closer to Wilson's. "How the hell would you or anyone know how well I was managing? I'm the only one who knows how crappy I feel every morning. All you know is you wanted to believe I was managing - so you choose to believe I was. You live in your own reality."

"I can't help worrying, in reality, about your health. I love you."

"I was in pain. How about worrying about _that _for a change? I fell off the wagon a little because I needed a break from it."

"And you didn't need the high, too?"

House snapped, yelling at him full on face. "When you've spent a decade with wasted muscle and nerve damage, come talk to me about what I need."

Wilson was determined to remain calm. For one thing, it was the only way he could think clearly. Secondly, refusing to get excited drove House nuts. "House we made love all weekend. That has got to mean something."

"Oh - we're talking about this again. Fine. It means we had sex. End of story."

End? What did that mean? End of them? End of this chapter of them? "Are you saying you don't love me?" Now Wilson started to get excited, not in a good way. His heart beat sharply beneath his ribcage. "Tell me once and for all, for Christ's sake."

Wilson knew House hated all this genuflecting and tossing around of feelings. It was one of the few things in life House couldn't juggle without dropping something.

"Just because we had great hedonistic sex doesn't mean you'll be faithful. go get fixed. then we'll discuss promises, rings and a Chihuahua."

Wilson felt a small thrill. "Great? It was _great_ sex?" In a tiny voice - "_Do you mean it_?" It was quite the compliment. Wilson felt like an idiot that he was blushing to the tips of his ears.

House ignored it and shrugged his shoulders. "Sure. You're great in bed. So what? You suck at sleeping in just the one." House turned and walked away.

Wilson rested his hands on his hips. Reminding his lover that he had obviously not thought that way a short time ago "House. You were going to buy us a house. You must have trusted enough for that." Wilson was itching to keep up the fight, just to sort through this very old argument of his own tendencies to infidelity. Or to start a new one about House's continuing fears of being hurt. "Where are you going?"

House pointed his cane at the hospital without turning back or stopping. "Here."

Wilson sighed. "House, we need to talk about us." A whole weekend together and nothing had changed. Wilson wondered if there would be any difference if he treated House like shit for a whole weekend.

Wilson watched House disappear into the doors of Plainsboro, feeling his heart sink once more. It looked like the progress they'd made over the last forty-eight hours had just vanished. A relationship with House was a roller coaster or nothing.

Foreman was suddenly at his elbow, and Wilson jumped.

"Trouble in paradise?"

Wilson tried not to show his irritation at the fellow's blunt curiosity. Foreman was a stoic, uptight physician, worse than House in some ways, but as for digging up gossip on his boss, Foreman could be almost as bad as Cameron. He might respect House's abilities as a physician, but his opinion of his co-department-head's personal life was less than stellar. "What the hell are you doing going back to House anyway?" Foreman asked rudely. "This can only end badly."

Wilson decided to cut this short as fast as possible, saying as he walked away "I'm doing everything I can to keep his sweet balls drained."

Foreman took the hint and followed him, but trailing behind.

Wilson stopped by his office to hang up his coat and change into an extra pair of work pants he always kept on hand. Patients often cried into his shoulders and got their tear-stained snot rags all over his clothes.

The cube of paperwork sitting on his desk called to him with its evil siren. It would be a good time to get the back-log of paperwork caught up, but first a visit to House's office. He wanted to at least smooth things over before they weren't speaking to each other ever again, or something worse.

House must have stopped off in the cafeteria because by the time Wilson arrived at House's office, Foreman was already seated in House's chair and House, carrying a breakfast egg muffin, was already pissed off about it.

When Wilson walked in after him, House momentarily ignored him, instead barking at Foreman. "Get your homie' ass outta' my chair."

Foreman already knew the department that would have been his was once more _House's_ and his, himself once again delegated to _co_-department head. "Cuddy still pampering you, huh?"

"Incontinence problem. Sweet deal. She changes them for me and everything."

Foreman refused to be baited or sidetracked. "My diagnosis was reasonable." Though he did get out of the chair as asked. House hadn't bothered ordering a desk for him, and Foreman was fine with using the conference room desk anyway, not drawn to sharing House's daily flood of constant chatter and crude jokes.

House slung his coat over the back of the swivel seat, looking pointedly at Wilson standing quietly by. ""Reasonable diagnosis." Now where have I heard that before _Wilson_?"

Wilson rolled his eyes. "Yeah. I'll have my hair-shirt on by lunch."

House said to Foreman. "Reasonable, shmeasonable. We were both reasonable in our diagno_ses_. We were also both wrong, which when you think about it, is a little _un_-reasonable."

"And speaking of _lunch_..." Wilson interrupted, looking at Foreman as a hint to leave. Foreman took it voluntarily and walked out. To House, "Are we okay?" Wilson gestured back and forth between them. "I mean, in any way at all?"

House took a deep breath and looked at the papers, pens and other things scattered across his desk. It was a personal tic with House. Whenever he was feeling a little guilty, he averted his eyes. Maybe he was feeling bad over his earlier insinuations that Wilson could never be fixed - in one way specifically; that once a cheater - always a cheater. Wilson hoped so.

Finally House brought his eyes back up, a little contrite and a little weary. "I think we _will _be."

It was House-ian for _I'm still too scared. Give me some time._

Wilson nodded. He could do that. He'd done it often enough in the past. "See you at lunch."

Foreman must have been waiting for Wilson to leave, because to House's irritation, he entered the office again as soon as House's outer office door closed. "Fine." Foreman announced. "We were both wrong. Then what do you think killed the kid?"

House glanced up to make certain Wilson was not lingering nearby to maybe overhear. "I don't know. But we need to examine the mother to find out."

"And how are we going to do that? She has disappeared."

House sat down and picked up his ball. "I got someone working on it."

Once House made sure Foreman had left for good - _finally_ - and was also out of earshot, he opened his cellular and hit a speed dial. "Sir Lucas of the Outrageous Fees. How goes the hunt? Bag any bitches yet?"

XXXXXXXXXXXXXXX

Part X asap


	10. Chapter 10

One Small Consequence

Part Xf

By GeeLady

Time-line: Post-season 6

Summary: Once is usually enough when cheating love. Relationship angst and a few other things, too.

Pairing: House/Wilson

Rating: NC-17, Adult, +18, Mature. Language. Sexual situations. SLASH.

Disclaimer: The guy with the cane and the hot a$$ doesn't belong to me, yadda, yadda...

XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX

"I found your skittish honey." Lucas said into his ear.

House stuck the cell phone between his shoulder and ear. Resting his weight between his cane and his one good leg, he scribbled things on his white board: _MUCUS- LESIONS MELENA RASH FEVER HIGH-WBC WEIGHT-LOSS __**DEATH??**_

House stared at the words while listening with half attention to Lucas's report. "Are you there? I got her phone number." Lucas said.

House huffed. "You were supposed to track her down physically - find _her."_

"She's living in Virginia with her sister. You want me to hoof it to another town, the fee goes up. I did dig up one other tidbit. Your lady's doctor. The one in Boston you said she mentioned?"

House was bored already. He already knew her family practitioner was in Boston. Janele was _from_ Boston. Nothing new there. "Is _this_ going to cost me extra?"

House heard Lucas typing. "He's not a general practitioner."

"Pediatrics."

"Nope."

"Ob-gyn?"

"_Bl-e-e-e-p!_ - thanks for playing."

House lost what grain of patience he had left. "Then what??"

"He's a bit like you, though much nicer to his detective I'm sure. An auto-immune specialist."

"I'm an infectious disease specialist, _Columbo_! Wha-?" House stopped short. Barry had not had Steven's though, which was an auto-immune reaction. Lucas knew that. He was a Snoop - a good one. He knew everything. "What _sort_ of auto-immune diseases does he specialize in, Dick Tracey?"

"Don't know. That'll cost ya' extra - the name calling, too."

"Did I say Dick Tracey? 'Cause I meant just plain _dick_." House frowned that he had not thought of talking to Janele's doctor himself, but so much had been happening back then; everyone doubting him, including himself. House shook off the distasteful memory.

He would rather avoid Plan B, but unless he wanted to take a flight or a weekend drive down to Boston and smooth-talk Janele's physician, or drop by her sister's place just to be turned away at the door. . .

Besides, he probably didn't need to go. Nor did he need to call Toxic Woman's doctor. He was fairly certain had the answer. More than fairly this time. All he needed was confirmation. In fact, he was so sure he was right that he hoped he was wrong. "The _cheque's_ in the mail." It was a modicum of triumph over another exsanguination of his bank account. "Ya' crook." House closed the phone.

"Plan B it is." House picked up his own office phone and dialed Wilson's internal number, but then canceled the call before it had a chance to ring at the other end. In his mind he could see tired Wilson sitting at his neat and clean desk, worrying the back of his neck while scribbling on his endless forms.

House entered his friend's office. Wilson dropped his hand quickly from his neck and tried to paste an _I'm fine_ expression on his drawn face.

House stood over the stacks of paper and Wilson's tense form, planting his cane in front of him. "I need to exhume Barry's body."

The _I'm fine_ face vanished. "What the hell for?"

"I think I know what killed him."

Wilson searched his own feelings on the subject. "I don't think I care anymore, and I don't want to put him through anything else."

House frowned at the ridiculous sentiment. "He isn't going to go _through_ anything. He's in that great bassinet in the sky where all babies are rosy-cheeked and suckling their mother's tit." It was a bit too harsh, but this was important.

Wilson reddened. "Fuck you. He was my son - you're not doing it."

House hated to resort to manipulation, but he was good at it and it was a short-cut to getting what he wanted. It also usually worked on Wilson. "I can get a court order. Especially if I suspect an unidentified infectious agent."

"There was no infection."

"We don't know that for sure, and the medical board and the courts _really_ don't know."

"In other words, you'll lie to get it."

As much as he hated any pretense to feelings for a kid he hardly knew (even Wilson's kid), House tried to be empathetic, but it made him hot and prickly, as though ants were crawling around inside his shirt. "Barry may have died from something very serious. We have to know what it is."

"No we don't. _You_ have to know."

House played his next-to-last card. "If what I suspect is true, then he could have gotten it from his mother. Janele could be at risk."

"You don't care about her."

House nodded. "Not a bit. But in your mis-managed chivalry, you kinda' do."

Wilson's lack of protest confirmed House's suspicions. Yeah, he kinda' did. But only because she was his late son's mother. "What do you suspect it is?"

"I don't want to speculate further. I don't want to make that same mistake." In actuality, he was speculating, but he needed the exhumation to confirm or negate that speculation, though he didn't think he was mistaken. Pills or no pills, he was still a better doctor than most, and had returned to believing that - much to Foreman's chagrin.

Wilson wasn't upset, not really. He was just so tired of it all. "Fine. Get me the form, I'll sign it - House?"

House turned back from his quick exit, his eyes a question.

"You'll...respect him?"

Meaning the body. House nodded, but a bit put-out by the unspoken suggestion that he might engage in a game of baby-organ juggling when no one was looking. "Of course. What do you think I am?"

"Sorry."

-

-

House turned when Cameron wheeled a gurney into the morgue's examination room. On it was draped a white sheet. She removed the sheet and under it was an opaque gray plastic bag which contained the decomposing body of Barry Nordrick-Wilson. Cameron cleared her throat. "I understand your obsessive need to run more tests until the mystery is revealed, but what do you need me for?"

"I'm wearing plastic gloves and an apron - are you thinking what I'm thinking?"

Cameron winced. "God, no."

House turned his attention to his "patient". "I want you to run these new tissue samples, and look for this." He handed her a fold of paper, which she unfolded and read.

She looked at him and at the body bag House was un-zipping. "You're serious."

House nodded. "Bring the results directly to me, no one else. Especially not Wilson."

Cameron nodded. "What if it's positive?"

"I'm hoping I'm wrong." House said. "Only I'm not." He sighed, frustrated at the delay in diagnosis. House picked up a scalpel and a small trocar. "If only I hadn't doubted my medical prowess to begin with."

"Well, you're hell with a probe, House." She smiled sadly. "Send me the samples, I'll do your tests."

Though in no way squeamish, she turned her head away as House cut into Barry's chest. Somehow, because the child had been Wilson's, it was harder. Wilson was a friend, and so Barry had not been a stranger.

"Thanks."

Cameron was genuinely surprised to not only hear the word, but that he actually meant it.

-

-

Cameron called him at home.

"House." He answered, pausing his TIVO game of football.

It was Cameron. "House. I got the results." She said.

When she didn't continue "Are you waiting for a drum roll?"

Cameron took a deep breath. "Your were right. His cells were positive." She paused, then added, "I'm so sorry. If there's anything I can d-"

"Thanks." House hung up. He sat there, letting the information wash over him. It was the weirdest feeling to be confronted with such a wallop of bad news delivered in so few words and by so small an invading force.

He dialed Lucas. "What was that number in Virginia?"

Lucas provided the information and before he could say another word, House hung up again and dialed the Virginia area-code and residential phone number of Janele Nordrick's sister, Georgina.

_"Hello?" _It was a quick, irritated greeting_._

"May I speak to Janele Nordrick?"

_"Who's calling?"_

"This is her priest." What the hell.

_"Janele is Anabaptist."_

"A joke. This is her doctor."

_"I know her doctor and you sound nothing like her. Who are you and wha-?"_

Fun time was over. "This is Doctor House, I was the attending on her son."

_"She says he doesn't wish to speak to you."_

"I think I know why he died. Tell her if she won't talk to me, I can contact her doctor directly and fill her in on why her patient is having unprotected sex." He waited.

There was a lengthy pause. House heard hushed voices in the background.

The phone was picked up& _"This is Janele. Why are you calling me?"_

"Why didn't you tell Wilson you were HIV positive?"

_"It was none of his business."_

"The law says you're wrong."

_"Nothing's going to happen to him. It was one time, the odds-"_

"Odds can be beaten. Sometimes without even trying. You got pregnant on purpose. You were sick and needed a meal ticket - someone to take care of you. A gullible doctor and a pregnancy was just the ticket. How many of Wilson's drinks did you spike?"

A sharp intake of breath. "I _never_-"

"-Of course you did. Barry died of AIDS-related illnesses - a whole whack of them."

Her silence drew out over the line like a dark, guilty void. "But babies can't-"

"-Get it from their mother? Not true. Twenty percent of the time, HIV is passed from mother to fetus. Barry was born with it. We never suspected it because your history was clean and you appeared as healthy as a horse. How long has your doctor had you on the cocktail?"

_"Two years."_ She said. If she was broken up about her culpability in her son's death, it wasn't filtering over the wire to him.

"Barry never got any treatment, and he was just the right age for his disease to progress to the point of no return. The virus had free reign for a year to rage through his system and knock out his immunities." High white blood cell count fighting a losing battle against an invisible enemy hiding in the DNA of the severely depleted T-helper cells. Lesions. Rash. Melena. Weight-loss. Edema. Pain. Pneumonia. Lungs drowning in his own fluids. An agonizing death. "Why the hell didn't you have him tested. He could have gotten treatment. He could have lived." If we had even had the slightest suspicion. . .

_"I swear I didn't know."_

"You've probably passed the infection on to Wilson, you stupid hag. He's _innocent." _House couldn't believe anyone in the modern day would be that naive about HIV and AIDS. Unless . . .? "You're lying. You _knew_ it would be passed onto him. No one's _that_ stupid, not even you. You deliberately infected him." Goddamn fucking whore. "You got yourself knocked up and a nice idiot's money for the rest of your life, so why hurt _him_? He didn't do anything but be decent to you. Why hurt Wilson?"

House could hear ragged breathing.

_"Because it's __**your**__ fault I got the damn virus to begin with."_

House frowned at the ludicrousness of the accusation. "I got around in my time, believe me, but I'm pretty sure you and I never did the dirty."

"I mean you: doctors and surgeons - hospitals. Three years ago I went in to have my appendix removed. On the operating table I bled a little too much, so I was given blood. HIV infected blood."

"That sucks but it wasn't Wilson's fault."

_"It was medical doctors like him who ruined my life. Only fair another medical doctor pay the tab."_

"Barry, too." If she cared, it wasn't manifest in her words so far. Sarcastically, "You know, drugging, raping and deliberately infecting someone with HIV might be considered a crime."

"Turn me in then!" Putrid bitterness. House could hear the tongue curling taste of it in her voice.

There was no point. If Wilson was by some miracle still clean, he might be willing to report the rape, the intent to harm by HIV (or what-ever label the authorities used), and she might get punished. If Wilson was infected, it was too late to change any of it. "I'll mention it to him."

There was nothing left to say. His diagnosis was confirmed not only in the lab, but on the phone to Virginia. "You vindictive bitch." House said. "You killed your own son." _And maybe my best friend, too._

_-_

_-_

House shocked Cuddy when he stepped into her office a full twenty minute early.

"My _god_." She remarked, looking at the time-piece on her wrist and making a show of shaking her hand around. "My watch must be broken."

House ignored the joke at his expense and sat down opposite her. He leaned forward and stole a few gourmet jelly beans from her decorative bowl. "Wilson's son died of AIDS related illnesses. He was HIV positive. Had been from birth." He popped a few in his mouth and chewed. Breakfast had been skipped. Upset stomach.

Cuddy stared back at him. "How do you know this?"

"I had Barry exhumed." He gestured to the piles of papers on her desk. "I filed the paperwork."

"Well, it's not here."

"Guess I forgot to send it to your office."

"Sure you did." At the moment, she didn't care. If he had done anything illegal or sort of legal but flagrantly stupid, she'd learn of it eventually and deal with it then. "Are you absolutely sure?'

House nodded. "She admitted it. Drugged Wilson's booze and, while he was in Wonderland, took him down her rabbit hole and humped him like a bunny. It was deliberate."

"She _knew_?"

"About her HIV, yes. She was on the cocktail. I don't think she knew that she'd given it to her son. Doesn't matter, Barry's dead and Wilson . . ."

"Wilson? Oh my god, you think he might be infected?" Cuddy felt like crying, but remained calm. Tears never did anyone any good, and what could she say? _Sorry your boyfriend might be HIV positive, but on the bright side - Hackensack's having a rubber sale._ "House. . .what are you going to do?"

It wasn't as though he had options. Matter-of-factly, "I'm going to tell him."

-

-

House caught Wilson in a big yawn. "You okay?" He sat down in Wilson's visitor chair, his brow carrying a smattering of worry.

A question over his health? "You're concerned?" He asked with a hint of mock. "Of course I'm okay. Just tired." He noticed the file in House's left hand. "Those the tissue results?"

House nodded.

"Did you get your answers?"

Nodding again, "Unfortunately, yes."

Now that got his attention. "What's wrong? What killed Barry?"

House looked at Wilson, his anxious browns, the furrowed forehead. Innocent anticipation of bad news only indirectly involving him. House wished that were true, more so this moment than any in his history. "His mother." House handed Wilson the file but kept on talking as he leafed through it. "Janele was HIV positive. She'd been on the cocktail for years. But not Barry. That is, he was born with HIV but not on the cocktail. Not on anything."

Wilson swallowed. "You mean Barry died of _AIDS?" _Wilson shook his head, not willing to believe a hospital full of doctors, that House, could have missed a disease that blatant. "We would have seen the symptoms."

"We did. But AIDS doesn't present in children they way it does in adults. For the first two or three months of his life, high on his mother's immunities and, by virtue of her breast milk - the cocktail, Barry did fine. There was no indication anything was amiss to his New Jersey pediatrician, and so nothing unusual in his pediatric charts. But when she switched to formula - "

Wilson continued, working it out in his own head. " - and once the maternal antibodies waned, his immunities began to take a beating from the virus. Ten or twelve months down the road from birth, he began showing the symptoms, . ." About a month after Janele showed up in all their lives to blow them to kingdom-come. ". . .while Janele concealed her illness. That's why she refused to offer a blood sample or any significant input." The end of the thought process reached. "Healthy family history, . . .cocktails keeps her rosy-cheeked and bouncy. No reason to suspect . . ." His respirations increased as his outrage grew. "How could her own doctor not have known? The Boston Ob-gyn - what-z'-name?"

"Because she hid everything." House answered. "I had Lucas do some digging." House said. "And I've got the empty bank account to prove it. Janele never told her Boston AIDS doc' she was pregnant." House sat back. "Tainted blood. She was infected during an appendectomy operation that went a bit hay-wire. Trapping you was a meal-ticket and revenge."

"But the CDC's recommendations, the amniotic testing..."

"That's just it, the CDC _recommends_ all new HIV-infected pregnant women get tested to see if the HIV's breached the placental barrier. In twenty percent of cases, it does. Recommended. Not enforced." House took a deep breath. "That's not all. She got pregnant on purpose by drugging you. The HIV was passed onto the baby. And the worry now is, maybe on to you as well." House hated to think it but "And me."

Wilson swallowed, trying to breath. He might be sick. HIV sick. House might be sick. They could both develop AIDS. "I can't believe - "

" - she was scared. HIV victim, alone, no one to take care of her."

"You're making excuses for her?"

"No, I'm reasoning it out. So she goes to the bar one night to find a really nice guy - not the best place to look for nice guys, but one night she sees you. Liked your looks, liked your manners, liked the idea of you and her. Then she learned you were a doctor, and a whole other field of possibility opened up. She could get her nice guy and her revenge all with the same bird. You were probably already drunk and rambling on about your relationship problems with a guy named Greg, but she learned enough about you to know you were upset and lonely enough that she could probably score, even off a homosexual, and if you were already HIV positive, so what? But what if your conscience balked at the last minute? The Ketamine was back-up. She decided right then and there to spring the ol' baby-trap."

House looked at his hands, sighing. "Every symptom Barry had was a symptom for a dozen different things, or of just one: AIDS acquired illnesses: infections present in his tissues, mucus membrane sarcomas, the rashes, the fever, even the Steven's, all because of the HIV. Antibiotics wouldn't have done squat. Nothing short of massive infusions of baby formulated HIV cocktail would have helped. Foreman and I were both right. And both wrong."

Wilson didn't want to play the blame-game. "You couldn't have known."

House reluctantly agreed. "No. Not without the correct maternal history."

Wilson numbly listened to House and his own thoughts while his heart hammered out fear. "Jesus, House." Wilson's mind switched back over to doctor mode, knowing what had to be done, and as soon as possible. "We have to get tested."

House nodded. "Yeah, I know. Cameron's set to go in the lab." He jerked his head at the door. "Come on."

-

-

Cameron wasted no time. She handed the first lab result to House. "You're clean."

House felt a huge tension drain from his body. Still, one test wasn't a sure bet. He'd have to have follow-ups.

"And . . ." She handed the second results to Wilson. " . . .I'm so sorry. I ran it twice." She understood being perched on a blade of terror. She'd been there herself once. But it was better to know and then do something about it, than to not know and live with the constant fright. "Positive for HIV."

House turned to stare at his best friend and lover. If Cameron had not been present and watching, he would have wrapped his arms around Wilson and held him as close as possible, until his fear, or his own, settled a little. But instead his sense of personal space betray him and kept him frozen to the spot.

Cameron took that as a hint to leave and gave them some privacy.

Wilson was reading his results over and over, his face pale and drawn with tension.

House wanted to tear into something, or someone. Smash the room's contents to itty-bitties. Wilson had gone to that bar upset, and maybe thinking about de-stressing stranger-sex, but he hadn't acted on it. He hadn't cheated - not on purpose. And House was convinced that, had Janele Nordrick stayed home that night, Wilson wouldn't have. House was sure of that now.

Instead a thoroughly stupid Toxic Bitch had spotted this nice, brown-eyed man and decided to rape him to get a baby, leaving behind a deadly disease in his cells, that had now raged unchecked for over a year. No wonder Wilson was looking worn and ill.

But Wilson was innocent, and House wanted to kill Janele Nordrick. She _should_ die. She had just murdered his best friend.

XXX

Part XI asap

Some of you folks guessed at this turn of events. NOTE: I must emphasize that this is NOT a Death-fic'! People with HIV or AIDS, with proper treatment, are living longer, healthier lives. Therefore NOT a Death-fic'.

8^)


	11. Chapter 11

One Small Consequence

Part XI

By GeeLady

Time-line: Post-season 6

Summary: Once is usually enough when cheating love. Relationship angst and a few other things, too.

Pairing: House/Wilson

Rating: NC-17, Adult, +18, Mature. Language. Sexual situations. SLASH.

Disclaimer: The guy with the cane and the hot a$$ doesn't belong to me, yadda, yadda...

XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX

At the knock on his office door, Wilson said automatically "Come in."

Chase walked in. "Wilson." He was carrying a small object.

Wilson hoped he was not here to offer his condolences on his brand new status of being a member of the HIV-infected club. or a I'm-sorry-your-baby-id-dead gift. either would depress him even more than he was.

The emails had already circulated and he had already had to accept kind words of sorrow on his behalf from a dozen colleagues and staff, most of whom pointedly did not offer him a sympathetic hand-shake. Wilson felt all at once like he ought to explain to them how the HIV wasn't his fault, and like crawling under his desk to lick his wounds, not coming out until it was all over.

Wearily, he bowed to the inevitable whatever it was of his present company. "What's up?"

Chase dumped the box on his desk. "House left this in my locker. Never mind that he had to pick the lock to get in, but he left me this."

Plain brown cardboard box, taped shut. String-tied, not a bow. Unconcerned with decoration or presentation. It smelled of House all right. "Is it a wedding congratulations or something?"

Chase nodded vigorously. "Yeah - or _something_. I'm afraid to open it."

Wilson stared at it. "Well, he knows he missed your wedding. . . " Though it was unlike House to send gifts to anyone at any time. For any reason. But then House had been through a lot in the last couple of years and maybe it had softened him a little?

Nah. "So you're not going to open it?" He had no advice either way. If Chase opened it and it was a booby-trap, Chase would blame him. If he didn't open it and it was not, Chase would still blame him. As being House's friend and bed-mate; the man closest to the nefarious heart of their resident Crooked-Man, Wilson was supposed to know and comprehend every warped thought that passed through House's mysteriously brilliant, but insane, mind.

Chase stared at the thing as though, if he looked long enough, it would reveal its dark, awful secret. "It's probably a cream pie resting on a retracted spring or TNT wrapped with duck tape attached to a ticking clock."

"You know. The strawberries at your bachelor party was just a mistake. House is not out to get you."

"With him, it's always smart to be a little paranoid."

"True. Or the box is just a wedding gift."

"Hah." Chase pursed his lips. "Will you open it for me?"

Wilson leaned back, waving away the opportunity to be a patsy. "No chance in hell." He shrugged. "I suppose you could drop it from the roof and see if its inner workings spring into action or something gets blown up."

Chase took it up. "That's a good idea. Wanna' come with?"

Wilson needed a break and a reason to laugh. "I'd thought you'd never ask."

Chase and Wilson leaned over his balcony, Chase holding the mystery gift out as far as his hands could reach. He waited until the concrete path below was clear of people, then looked aside to Wilson. "Ready?"

Wilson nodded in the affirmative. "Bombs away."

Chase let the thing go and both men watched as it dropped, hitting the pavement a few seconds later with a soft thud. Chase stared at his handiwork three floors below. "Well, the hospital's still standing. It wasn't a nuclear devise." A few people walked by it curious enough to check it out, but not enough to pick it up. "No one's dropping to the ground in a dead faint, so it's not a jar of skunk-gland."

Wilson followed Chase down to the first floor to retrieve the box. One corner was mashed flat, but otherwise it had survived its sky-dive. "Look," Wilson counseled, "With House, I'm as cautious as any man, but once in a while he does astound the universe by doing something nice, as dramatically contrary to his nature as that is...so why don't you just open it?"

Defeated, Chase nodded, broke the string and tore at the taped cardboard. Inside was a an envelope. He glanced at Wilson. "Anthrax?" then opened it. It was a Hallmark card and inside was tucked two tickets. Chase said. "Not a cream pie or a bomb."

Wilson examined the tickets. "Two front row seats to the ballet."

Chase's face dropped. "Oh God! Just as bad - see? House knows I _hate_ the ballet."

Wilson was enjoying himself for the first time in months. "But House knows Cameron loves it." Wilson reminded the new husband. "This is House's way of making gift-giving fun. A present for Cameron and you-"

"- a cream pie in the face."

Wilson smiled. "Yes. "

"I liked him better when he was crazy only we didn't know why."

Wilson's smile vanished. "Schizophrenia is _not_ crazy." _Sort of the way HIV is not AIDS._ "He's on med's now that are working - he's fine. Besides, House was always a little nuts. It's why we love him."

"I guess I should thank him."

"Boring. He'd appreciate you leaving a tack on his chair more."

-

-

House had his head buried in a thick tome, his reading glasses balanced on the tip of his nose.

Wilson waved a hand at the book. "Anything interesting?"

House turned the book to its front cover.

"_"Clinical and Applied Immunology; __The Theory of Cytotoxic T-lymphocyte Memory__"._ House, you've read that book ten times. You know it almost by heart."

House put it aside, and removed his glasses. "But I _haven't_ read it ten times from the point of view of a doctor who knows it by heart but who's partner is HIV positive." He held up a finger. "So it's like starting all over again from one."

"When's your follow-up?"

"Next month."

Wilson knew that of course.

House asked point-blank. "Who are you going to go to for treatment."

Wilson had already made his appointment. "Kleinman. Tomorrow." Then once per week for the next six months then, if his body responds as well to the cocktail as Janele's had, twice a month after that. Only a small percentage of people stay healthy looking on the cocktail, Janele being one of the lucky ones.

Most started to look like cancer victims after about a year. _My territory_. Looked like his luck was holding. At least he knew what to expect. "He says the sooner I get on the drugs, the better."

"He's right." House knew Wilson was avoiding what he really wanted to talk about by talking about stuff he knew House already knew.

"House . . ." Suddenly the death of his son, as much as it still stung, and the news about his disease, as bad as it was, didn't measure up to the pain he felt over what he was about to say. "I'm HIV positive." What he about to say after _that_.

House stared at him, searching. Suspecting. "Yeah, I know."

Wilson gestured back and forth between them."We - this makes us - you and me re-uniting would be a bad move."

House guessed right. Wilson was running again. "Are you afraid you're going to infect me? If we're careful, the chance is almost nothing."

"But still something."

"HIV is not spread through saliva, tears or sweat." House said. "We've shared two out of three, so even if you watch Steel Magnolia's and cry, I still won't get infected." He stood up. Sometimes it paid to be face to face. On the same level so he could stare directly at those frightened brown eyes and make him understand that he was not going anywhere. "We use condoms. _Double_ condoms if it's make you feel better. You try harder to avoid paper-cuts and nicking yourself shaving - "

" - House. Even in my practice, I'm going to have to adhere to strict methods of behavior. No more direct physical exams by me on any patient. No more needles by me, no more blood taken by me. I'm going to have to hire a whole second staff."

"So what? What does that got to with - ?"

"If I have to be that careful even when I'm being _work_-careful, how long do you think it'll be before I accidentally get some of my blood on you, or _in_ you, or other body fluid when I'm just being extra-careful? Even double condoms can break."

House released tension-filled lungs with a great exhale. "So you're breaking up with me? You don't really want to. I know you, you're afraid of something, and not just of hurting me."

Biting his lip, he nodded. "Of _course_ I'm afraid. This has to be . . .this is the best for us."

"You don't sound convinced. And, by the way, I'm half of _us_." House sighed. Wilson was so - "You're such a girl. Come on, I'll even wear the ring."

"You kept it?"

"It's eighteen karat gold with a couple of good rocks on it. I may have been mad at you, but I'm not an idiot."

Wilson looked at his shoes. At his fingers. At House. So quietly, House could hardly hear him. "I don't want you to get infected."

"Me neither, which is why we'll be very, very _careful_."

Wilson shook his head. "I'm not willing to take that chance."

House stepped closer, demanding to be taken seriously. "I am." He tried a different tactic. "Who's going to take care of you? Protease inhibitors have side effects; weight loss, abdominal pain, rash, stomach problems . . .you're going to need someone to be around to, to..."

"Hold my hand?"

House set his jaw. "Yeah. Hold your hand. We'll hire a day nurse if we have to for the rest."

"House, I only have so much money -"

" - I have money - a lot of its _yours_. I'll help you with your patients."

Wilson waved his hands. "No, I'd like to keep my practice running smoothly, not pile up lawsuits. You're no good with patients."

"My team, then. I'll arrange shifts. I'll double my clinic hours, that ought to make Cuddy happy. I'll stop making clever comments about her boobs and ass, that'll make her delirious - she'll agree to anything."

"House - " Wilson rubbed his forehead with his fingers-tips, then turned a walked out of the office.

"Hey - " House followed. Catching up to him in the hallway, not easy as Wilson had a quick stride when he wanted to. "What the hell are you so afraid of?"

Wilson looked sideways at him. "Are you serious? I have HIV - a year's worth. I'm at risk for AIDS - this changes my whole life. At the best scenario, this is going to shorten it."

"But it doesn't have to change everything."

"I've made up my mind, House." He said, adding in a lower voice. "I may not have been able to make you happy, but I can do this."

House stopped him by placing his left hand on Wilson's shoulder and spinning him to a halt. "You made me happy." As House declarations of love went, it was huge. "Stop acting like your life is a tragic film noir - people with HIV live for decades with proper treatment and if they're _careful_."

Wilson put his hands on his hips. He was so tired, he could hardly stand up. "House I'm going home. Alone. I promised myself I would never put you in a position again to hurt yourself for me."

House shook it off with an impatient grimace. "Is this about the DBS again? I choose that. I _suggested_ it. My time in Mayfield had nothing to do with that."

"You don't know that. Even your doctors weren't sure."

"I'm sure." House felt a small panic rise in his chest. Wilson was acting like he'd already made up his mind. It was tough to shift him after that. "I'm fine. Can we get back to you now?"

"No." Wilson stepped back. "Maybe the risk is small, but it's still a risk. House - you're on four different medications already, your heart isn't a hundred percent anymore, and with an HIV infection - " He took a calming breath and spoke slower. "If anything happened to you because of me, I couldn't live with myself this time." Wilson didn't want to be cruel, but to get his point across it was better to hurt House now than hand him a death sentence later. "We're over, House. We're done. I'm sorry. That's final."

Wilson walked away, too quickly this time for House to follow.

House watched him disappear around a corner. "Martyr."

-

-

"You have a case."

Cuddy intercepted him at her office, as he was about to pass by the clinic for the second time that morning.

"And your clinic hours are over-due. Doctor Mckarnjuk had to pull your hours."

"Good of him." House stared at her extra-bouncy cleavage. "Under wires cutting into your administrative duties?"

"Never mind my boobs, and _she_ wasn't pleased." She thrust the file at him. "Here. Forty-year old male presents with dizzy spells, and systemic pain."

House took the file. It looked mildly interesting. "Wilson's going to need some help with his practice. I told him I'd loan him members of my team when he needed them."

"Without checking with me first?"

"If it'll soothe your ego, I can go back down the hall? We can do this all over again." He cleared his throat and effected an overly-pleasant, underly-House smile of greeting. "Why Doctor Cuddy! Your boobs are looking exceptionally bouncy today. Under wir - "

" - Shut up." She stopped, facing him. "I am aware Wilson needs help."

"But only so much as that awareness doesn't interfere with your budget."

"_I'm_ the bitch? Right. That you would think, of all people, that you're the only one capable of displaying sympathy in this level of crises is laughable. I've hired, you arrogant ass, a second intern to help him with examinations."

Cuddy was pleased to see she had momentarily stunned him.

"I'm speechless." He said.

"I wish."

"No I mean, I'm speechless. Even without the under wire, those golden apples are as firm as ever."

Cuddy smiled. One corner of her lip, that was all. It was an apology - House-style. "I know you're worried about him. So am I. I pulled every favor the Board owed me to also get him extra disability insurance through the hospital, if he should ever need it, and believe me, after twelve years of you - there weren't many favors left."

House looked away down the hall. He did not process emotion well, or fellow feeling, or sorrow. His or anyone's. It wasn't up to her now to act beyond what she had already done. More words were pointless.

"Tend to your patients." She said.

-

-

The middle-aged fellow was in pain, but awake and responding well to questions. Doctor Hadley pressed her finger-tips into his abdomen in one spot after another, making a circular examination. "Give me a scale of how tender it feels. One for fine, ten for very tender."

"About a five. But I do a lot of a sit-ups every day." Hadley nodded. The fellow had kept himself in shape, six-pack and all. "But now it hurts more than usual?"

"Yeah. Plus I'm dizzy all the time."

Hadley felt his forehead. "No fever. No infection." She placed her stethoscope against his chest and checked his heart. "How dizzy? Just when you get up, or when you climb stairs, lying down...?"

"When I'm upright. Walking, sitting, all the time, a weird, light-headed dizziness; it feels like, if I move too quickly, the room will start spinning."

Hadley frowned. "I'll be back soon."

-

-

"I think he has an inner ear imbalance." Hadley said. It was late afternoon. Differentials were usually set for mid-morning or just after lunch. House's two most usual hours of arrival at the hospital. "I thought you had clinic hours this afternoon?" Thirteen asked.

House poured a coffee and added copious amounts of cream. "That's what Cuddy thought, too. Can we get back to the patient, what-z-name?"

"Gordon Burkette. He's complaining of dizziness. It's his inner ear."

Hadley sounded sure of herself. Time to take her down a peg, and House conspicuously did not write it on the white-board. "That three other emergency doctors didn't think to look for?"

"He may not have reported it accurately. Most patients don't anatomically describe their symptoms correctly." She reminded him. "To them, dizziness is just dizziness, but it could be sinus infection, low blood pressure, a tumor pressing on the canals or the saccule - "

House spoke sharply. "Yeah, enough with the first year med' school talk. He's dizzy. Did you check if his head hurts? Did you stick your finger in his ear and ask him if it boo-boo-ed?"

Hadley. "I scoped his ear." She sat back. "It looked fine."

House looked from her to Foreman. "Is she not getting enough or too much? Either way, Foreman - fix it. I need my doctors focused on this, not on what _isn't _happening at home."

"Just mind your own damn business and get back to the patient." Foreman said sharply, ignoring House's typical crude, one-sided banter. "Any kind of ear problem wouldn't be causing abdominal discomfort."

House looked back at the board. ABDOMINAL PAIN DIZZINESS "We're missing something. Anything weird in his history?"

Taub answered. "Nothing. Dad was diabetic, but son shows no sign of it. Mom's in early stage dementia but otherwise healthy. Not related at all."

House asked Hadley. "Did he turn you on?"

"Excuse me?"

"Was he hot? You know - ripped? Tight?"

"Shut your trap about my sex-life, House - at least I _have_ one."

To her amazement, House didn't come back with an even ruder rejoinder. But then, he hadn't been in every way directly and personally insulting either. She remembered suddenly that House's partner was now ill, and House was probably pretty torn up about it. "Sorry." She muttered with as much sincerity at that moment as she could stand.

"What does the patient being "ripped" have to do with anything?" Foreman asked, a little irritated at Hadley's blush.

House noticed, too, but instead of commenting he only nodded to her. Hadley wondered if House was indicating that he was sorry back. It seemed so, Hadley thought, but with House you could never be sure.

So she was not shocked when House continued. "But your ears tell me he _did_ turn you on." He wrote A BABE on the white board. "Physically fit, in other words." House verbally added.

"That's not a symptom." Taub said. He had a particular disdain for House's insistence on making everything convoluted when it didn't have to be.

"Sure it is." House countered. "How many TV women in tights haven't had their boobs, hips and stomach done, so they can look good?" House asked him. "You were in the industry. You think obsession with looks isn't a symptom of anything?"

"Nothing's that relevant here."

House put his marker down. "We don't know that yet. In the mean-time, it stays on the board - nyah-nyah." He seated himself. "Dysmorphic disorder is something you may never, never, _ever_, _**ever**_have experienced, but maybe our patient is so pumped about keeping a great bod', he's taking steroids or something worse to make himself look really, really _great_ while he dies."

House sighed and sipped his third coffee of the day. "Go! Re-do the other doctors obviously botched tests. Blood panel, urine panel, stool panel, hair panel and every other panel you can think of. I want pan-panels."

His fellow's filed out. "And send Taub to do the poop scoop." House called out after them. After they were gone. "_My_ board." House muttered. "_My_ symptoms."

-

-

Wilson entered House's office. "Did you tell a Sergeant Kerrer to call me?"

House nodded. "Figured you'd want to bring charges against you know - Hell-knows-no-bitch-like-that-Bitch, or what ever her name was."

Wilson didn't like that House had not spoken to him first about it, but he loved him for the thought itself. "Well, I don't think I want to do that. I'm tired of all this, I just want to put it behind me."

House had his feet up and bounced his ball against the desk. _Bobble-bobble_...Muted sounds of soft felt on wood. "Oka-ay. But you _can't_ actually put it behind you. Her parting gift is here to stay."

"I know. I meant metaphorically. A court case, witnesses, my family hearing about my sordid life . . ." He shook his head at the horrible images.

House nodded, accepting that. "I think you're making a mistake by letting her get away with murder, but - hey - if you're set on being nice. . . I am just _one_ man. There is, you know, no cure for Nice-Guy-to-the-point-of-stupid."

Wilson raised tolerant eyebrows. Their social contract was still well in effect. "Thanks, I'll cope."

House sat forward. "I suppose you could collect some other way."

"How, exactly? And collect what?"

"If not a conviction - satisfaction. Just be creative. Accidentally shoot her with a blow dart from fifty paces - _non_-poisonous if that part bothers you. Trip her down a flight of stairs by mistake. Tell her blood-letting is the new Hollywood celebrity weight-loss diet, and you just happen to have brought your siphon. Or be a true heathen - burn her village and eat her dog."

"House, I'm not going to turn into a crazed stalker. I'm not going to turn into you."

"One of these days, when you're old and gray of hair - " House stopped, staring at Wilson's un-aged in ten years face, and irritatingly rich brown shock of beach-party hair. "Who am I kidding? You'll _never_ be old or gray." Bastard! "Anyway, some day you will slip up and admit I was right."

"I'll keep reaching for my rainbow, thanks. Maybe we're both wrong?"

House shook his head. "One of us has to be wrong, and since I'm the one who's right, it has to be _you_."

Wilson turned one corner of his mouth up. "I do love you, you know. Even though we're . . not going to be together."

House nodded. "I know."

"How's your patient?"

House looked straight at him. "He's an _idiot_."

-

XXXX

Part XII asap


	12. Chapter 12

One Small Consequence

Part XIIf

By GeeLady

Time-line: Post-season 6

Summary: Once is usually enough when cheating love. Relationship angst and a few other things, too.

Pairing: House/Wilson

Rating: NC-17, Adult, +18, Mature. Language. Sexual situations. SLASH.

Disclaimer: The guy with the cane and the hot a$$ doesn't belong to me, yadda, yadda...

XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX

Taub spoke in his matter-of-fact way. "There is no indication of ascites or infection. No edema. The CT was clean. The blood-work was clean."

Hadley shook her head. "We've seen infections before that escaped a C and S, this could still be an infection. His systemic pain is now settled in his joints. He's in agony. And now he can't stand either."

House paced, leaning heavily on his cane, his face a grimace whenever his right foot struck the floor.

Foreman noted it. "What's up with the leg?"

House looked at him, already annoyed that someone was talking about something other than the patient. "What's up with the nose? As in - it should be in our patient's business, not mine."

Foreman there-after dismissed his own concern over his stubborn co-worker. "We should get a sample of his synovial fluid. If it's an infection, and it has spread to his joints, there should be high WBC and inflammation."

House looked at Hadley and Taub. "_Is_ there inflammation?"

Hadley cleared her throat. "Not any I could see, not yet. But that doesn't mean there isn't any. It might be chronic low-level."

House frowned. "No heat? No redness?"

Hadley shook her head. "But pain, yes."

Hadley's pager beeped for attention, then Taub's, and finally Foreman's.

House stared at them. "Looks like something's changed." He remarked. "Go find out what it is."

Taub and Hadley left the room. Foreman lingered.

House rolled his eyes, and moved to pour himself a coffee, just so he could keep his back to his most annoying colleague. "It'd be sorta' nice if we could cure this patient before he dies. Afterward isn't nearly as impressive." But his sarcasm failed to get rid of his department's Cuddy-instituted _second_ department head.

Foreman moved his eyes from House's face to his leg and back. "Ever since Wilson was diagnosed HIV positive, your leg's been acting up."

House turned, sipping his coffee. "No sex since we broke up. The leg was used to getting the squeeze on a regular basis."

"Right." Foreman didn't rise to the bait. "Sympathy pain just doesn't happen between heterosexual couples, you know. This could possibly be your subconscious reaction to Wilson's illness. I knew a guy who went through all the symptoms of his wife's cancer while she was dying."

"Fascinating tale. But, much more possibly, it could be the lousy sleep I had last night, or - even more possibly - a really, really annoying employee who should be supervising the other employees, instead of trying a differential on his really irritated boss who's leg is his own business."

"You're not my boss, and I'm just trying to help."

"_I'm_ not your patient. Go work, or go do what ever. As long as it's _go_." A thought crossed his mind. "Foreman."

Foreman turned back, but with a clear show of indifference.

"_Did_ we rule out cancer?"

"CT showed no sign of it. Blood work was clean."

House nodded quickly, like he just remembered those facts. "Oh - right. Fine. And Foreman - "

Foreman turned again. House was actually displaying a bread crumb of contritness on his usually insolent features. He gestured lazily to his right leg with his coffee cup. "Thanks for - "

"No sweat." Foreman answered and, assuming it was okay to leave, this time made it all the way out the door to go join his subordinates and their patient.

House left a moment later. Turning right, he limped to Wilson's office, forcing a neutral "no-pain-here" expression on his face before knocking on his friend's door.

From inside. "Come."

House opened and sat down in the chair opposite Wilson's desk. He tried not to plop down as though his leg couldn't bear his weight any more. He almost made it, too.

Wilson noticed the plop, and his forehead scrunched up with worry. "How bad _is_ your leg today?"

"Behaving more rationally than you are."

"_House_. Scale of one to ten. Give me a number."

Screwing up his face and shutting his eyes in deep consideration - "Your cock rate's a five, but what you do with it - a big honking _**ten**_."

"Thanks. I think. Your _pain_?"

"Forget about it. I just had a bad night." House shifted so he sat a bit lop-sided, more on his left cheek. Even his ass muscles hurt. A massage would be nice, but his boyfriend was acting like a frightened doe, so the pain-in-the-ass, and his _pain_ in the _ass_, would continue for a while. "Would cancer manifest with systemic pain, along with the dizziness - I mean dizziness aside from a neurological cause?"

"Depends on the type, and if it was advanced enough _and_ had metastasized, possibly _to_ his brain. Does you think your patient has cancer?"

"No." House shrugged. Backed-up. Not so adamantly, "I don't know - we can't find anything wrong with him."

"Do you want me to check him out?"

House nodded. "Lunch, too?"

Wilson sighed a little. "House, do you really think this patient has cancer, or was this just a ruse to maneuver me into a date?"

House shrugged again. "Both?"

Wilson felt the loneliness rise in him. And could see it in House. Yes, he missed him. God, did he miss him. But he was sick. "I won't take that chance, House. And getting over you is going to be hard enough without adding in lunch dates and extra socializing."

"So we can't even have lunch together anymore? Wow, you're taking this self-sacrificing crap a little too seriously. You are not kryptonite."

"Yes. And you're not Superman, just a guy who could catch my HIV."

House shook his head at his most stubborn ex. "Will you check my patient for cancer?"

"I'm assuming no obvious lymph involvement." If so, House would not have consulted him at all. The diagnosis would have been simple.

House shook his head. "But sweats, with abdominal and large joint pain. The abdominal might be GI tract involvement, but if so, it's too early for it to show on a CT. The joints hurt but no swelling."

Wilson thought for a moment. If it was cancer, it was a weird one. "Tell Chase to get me a sample of his serosa, the ascending colon and a superficial inguinal lymph node for biopsy. It'll be a few days."

House nodded. "Thanks." He stood and limped to the door, now not bothering to hide his pain. Pausing for a moment, he looked back and threw casually over his shoulder - "How are you?"

Wilson tried to manage strong, well and happy, and almost pulled it off. "I'm okay. You?"

A lie. House knew Wilson was hell-fire and beyond from "okay". He was too stiff, and too formal in his speech. Too casual in his assurances of coping-very-well-thank-you. Wilson was keeping a stiff upper lip, but his body had betrayed him (though, first it had been the bitch who had betrayed him), and he was sick, with the potential in his cells of becoming much, much sicker. Though the cocktail was doing its thing, Kleinman assured them. So far, Wilson still looked healthy, or was taking great pains to appear so.

House often hid his pain, but he knew it also wasn't likely to get much worse. Plus he had coped with his leg on his own for years. A small few of those years he'd also had Wilson's talented hands lending him their skill every-so-often in a deep muscle massage, there-by making his pain that much easier to cope with.

House wasn't sure if he should lie or be honest. Lying didn't come hard for him, but lying about this, about Wilson staying away - hurt too much to pass off as trivial. A lie would minimize what they'd had and now didn't.

"_Not_ okay." House exited quickly, before Wilson attempted to soothe his hurt with useless platitudes of even more useless comfort.

This was a healthy pain he was harboring, House decided, as he humped slowly back to his office. A deep, miserable ache, and he wanted to keep it for a while. Losing Wilson, (though he didn't really know whether or not this was permanent), merited some months of sorrow. Wilson was worth the hurt. Dismissing what they had as though it had been a casual sex-affair, would have been a worse lie. He loved Wilson more than anything or anyone. All things were worth the sacrifice, if it meant Wilson would be fine. But he probably wasn't going to be, and House didn't know what to do about it. He just knew he wanted to be with him.

Hands-down, church-on-Sunday truth.

-

-

"Hello, Mister Burkette. I'm Doctor Wilson."

"Gordon." Who reached out his hand to shake, but Wilson held his own hands up, turning them over and back, to show he was wearing sterile gloves. "Sorry. Your attending thinks you may have an infection, so . . ." Wilson let the guy fill himself in on whatever he thought the rest of that sentence might entail.

"I just need to examine you for a moment; ask a few questions." Wilson explained using his nicest doctor voice.

"Shoot." The fellow was friendly, if looking like warmed over cream-soup. He was also grimacing in pain.

"Do you need more morphine? I could ask-"

Burkette shook his head. "Doctor Taub said I'm already on the maximum. Which sucks."

Wilson consulted his chart. "How long had this abdominal pain gone on before you sought help for the first time?"

"Doctor Hadley already asked me all these questions."

Wilson nodded, assurance personified. "I know. I have a few new ones. How long?"

"About a year."

"A year? You waited a year in pain, before seeking help?"

"I didn't think I needed it. The pain wasn't that bad back then."

"When did it get really bad? The first time you can remember?"

"Nine, tens months ago."

Wilson tried not to scold him a second time. "That probably wasn't wise, Mister Burkette. You shouldn't ignore your health."

Burkette lifted his gown, unashamed of his nakedness, catheter and whatever other tubes were snaking out from between his legs. "Look."

Wilson wasn't sure - then he saw. Burkette had a six pack any man would murder for. Perfectly formed and tight. Wilson cleared his throat. "Very nice, but I don't see how that-"

"I work out five times a week for two hours a crack. I eat the healthiest diet on the planet. I have never smoked or done drugs or drank more than a beer a week since I was seventeen. Does this look like the body of a man who neglects his health?"

Wilson nodded. "Your dedication to your well being is commendable, but anyone can get sick, Gordon."

"Not me." He smoothed his gown out again. "Not until now."

Wilson focused on the chart in his hands. "Do you work in a place that daily uses toxic chemicals? Asbestos, formaldehyde, benzoate?"

"I teach fitness. Outdoors in the summer, and in an oxygen enriched, climate-controlled gymnasium in the winter."

Wilson wondered if the man was just too enthusiastic. "So there's been nothing? Absolutely no behavior or situation - even one not your fault - _ever_ - that you might have suspected was unhealthy?"

Burkette turned his eyes to the wall, thinking. He turned back. "Mom said I was born underweight." He finally offered. "Does that help?"

Wilson smiled, shaking his head. "Not really. There's no correlation between low birth weight and cancer." He quickly put up a reassuring hand. "Not that we're sure it's cancer. We don't know what it is yet. We're just looking into the things it might be. Process of elimination."

Burkette was suddenly staring hard at him. "Hey, Doc'. Are you sure _you're_ all right? Your sweating."

Wilson wiped a surprised sleeve across his forehead. It came away stained with perspiration. He brushed it off with one up-turned crook of his lip. "_Hot_ in here."

-

-

Wilson stuck his head in House's office door. "I got the samples from Chase. Have the results for you in two days."

House looked up from his Internet. No porn today. A web site. "Gay and Living with HIV". The article of particular interest to him was the last part: "Their partners - Why the newly diagnosed often push their loved ones away." The article was mostly anecdotal, and filled with advice on positive thinking and words of love and reassurance - almost nothing House was willing to try or, even if he knew how, believed would make any difference. But reading it made him feel like he was doing something about a situation that currently had him cold, and at an infuriating stand-still.

House quickly shut his computer screen off. "I know. Chase told me." He leaned on his desk, linking his fingers together, studying Wilson until Wilson shifted his feet, fidgeting beneath the scrutiny. Bingo, House thought. "In fact, you already told me that."

Wilson lifted his head in a sort of _Did I??_ nod. "Oh. Well, see you tomorrow."

House stood, not wanting their one, brief conversation in the last twenty-four hours to end so fast. "Wilson - wait." House gathered up his coat. "Can you give me a ride home?"

"What's wrong with your car?"

This was lie he could do. "In the shop. Apparently cars need oil and other mysterious fluids." Wilson would believe it. House wasn't incapable of learning about all things grease-monkey, he just hated all that mechanical shit. And electronic things, and toasters. Anything that required a battery, proper electrical hook-ups or programming. Wilson had always taken care of pushing the right buttons on his TIVO and his DVD player so he wouldn't miss Prescription Passion or the Miss America swim suite competition. Or monster trucks when he couldn't make a live show.

Wilson _used_ to take care of them anyway.

Wilson pulled up in front of House's apartment building. "Here you go." False bravado. Fake cheer. Wilson-esque coping mechanisms that allowed no chink in the thinning armor to show. House tried not to let himself hope, but he asked anyway. "Wanna' beer?"

Wilson stared out the windshield. "House . . ."

"_One_ damn beer?" He asked, angry now. He felt helpless. Pathetic, too, since what he was about to say was sadly, and up-settingly, true. "You're still my only friend, you know." He reminded him quietly. His heart was actually hurting. It was the weirdest thing to actually feel emotional hurt in the center of his rib-cage. He couldn't remember the last time... "Who else am I supposed to drink with when I'm depressed?"

Wilson looked at him. "How depressed are you?"

House was angry all over again. "Oh, stop with the medicine-man routine. I miss you, okay! Do I have to spell it out - you idiot!?" House tapped his cane on the dirty carpet, dirt from years of his own sneakers. His anger drained away as rapidly as it had filled him. What a weird, up-side-down, shitty thing breaking up was. "Do you want a beer or not?" He asked again, defeated. Weary. Broken love sucked.

Wilson put the car in Park. "One beer. Then I have to go."

House wrenched his door open and piled out as fast as his cramping leg would let him. "Forget it! I don't want a pity pal." He slammed the door, and humped his aching body as fast as possible to his front door.

Wilson rested his head against the steering wheel. Damn. He got out and followed House to the apartment. Using his key, he opened the dead-bolt, only to discover House had chained the door as well. Wilson slumped against the jamb. "House. Let me in."

Wilson could hear House putting his coat away in the front closet, crimping down the hall, then the bathroom door shutting.

Wilson waited until he heard the toilet flush, water running, and finally House's unique pattern of steps came back up the hall toward the front door. "House?" Wilson tried again. "I'm sorry, all right?" He felt like shit. "This isn't easy for me either you know."

No answer.

"House? Come on, I feel like crap and it's cold out."

Silence. Then the door shut and the chain was removed. Wilson sighed, opening the door. House was slumped on his couch, sipping from a tall, brown beer bottle. He had conspicuously not got a second one for Wilson.

Wilson sat down beside him. "I'm not exactly _loving_ being away from you."

"So, come home." House said.

Wilson closed his eyes. "It's not that simple."

"Why not?"

"Because - " Wilson wanted to just give in and come home. But he would be useless to House now. House needed caring for most of the time. He used to love doing it, as frustrating as House's laziness could sometimes be. But now...? "I'm sick, House."

"I'll take care of you."

"How?"

"We'll figure it out."

Wilson ran fingers through his hair. _God!_ - House was impossible. Reasonableness just never came into it for him. "I can't - I _won't_ risk infecting you."

House stood, it was a struggle but he was so pissed off, he wanted to jump out of his skin. Once upon a time, leaping from his chair in anger would make a battle-pleasing emotional impact on whoever he was arguing with - Stacey, it used to be. Now, pushing himself off the cushions and shaking all the way up, left a slightly lesser impression of dramatic fury. Which just pissed him off all the more. "It's _my_ risk. It's _my_ body, _my_ life, you putz!" House shook, he was so angry. "In case you haven't noticed - I don't _have_ a life without you, you _moron_."

Wilson watched in amazement as House stood there, shaking life a leaf. He'd never seen House so out-of-control. "House,..."

He'd made House drill into his brain, made him seize, made him hallucinate, made him mentally sick, made him spend four months in a psychiatric hospital. Damn near made him not ever come back from the brink. Not again. _No_. "I can't." Wilson rubbed his face. His hands sweated, his skin itched. Side effects from the anti-HIV viral med's. "I couldn't _stand_ it if I hurt you again." Wilson turned his head away. "If you want to call me weak, fine. Then I'm weak. But,..." He bit his lip. "I won't ever risk your life again. Not for me. Not for _anything_!"

House was breathing hard, but he set his jaw. Pointed his cane at the door. "Go the hell home and drip noble on your own damn hardwood, and lock the door on your way out."

Wilson wanted to back-up these last two years. Reverse them. Why can't life have a rewind button? Wilson turned and left, softly closing and locking the door behind him. He listened on the other side and, when he thought he heard sniffling, almost opened it again.

But he couldn't sure. House almost never cried. He hadn't seen House cry since Stacey left, and that was just a tear or two after a night of hard drinking. So he walked to his car, got in and drove home.

House would eventually understand his decision. When he developed full blown AIDS - _if _he did - House would see he was right. And if he didn't,...Wilson didn't know. But in his personal and medical opinion, the risk of infecting House was too great to ignore.

Guilt drove his thinking. House strapped down, on a mental ward. Wilson had read the disciplinary notes. House screaming at his doctors to fix him, and their only answer was to increase the doses, or lower them, or change the med's altogether. House was now _on_ those medications that he wouldn't have needed had Wilson just let Amber slip away.

Great layers of guilt upon guilt. House's already shredded health would not be risked again. Wilson loved him too damn much. He stole a glance in the mirror, and was shocked to see that he himself was crying. He couldn't feel the tears. Numbness in the extremities; hands, face, feet. He moved his foot on the accelerator. Yes, he could still feel his toes, but still, ...damn good thing he was sitting down. Mild peripheral neuropathy. A side-effect from his med's.

Wilson pulled out his cellular and dialed Kleinman. He imagined himself, if this could not be reversed, shuffling along on a walker sometime down the road. It only served to convince him that he had made the right decision.

-

XX

Part XIII asap


	13. Chapter 13

One Small Consequence

Part XIIIf

By GeeLady

Time-line: Post-season 6

Summary: Once is usually enough when cheating love. Relationship angst and a few other things, too.

Pairing: House/Wilson

Rating: NC-17, Adult, +18, Mature. Language. Sexual situations. SLASH.

Disclaimer: The guy with the cane and the hot a$$ doesn't belong to me, yadda, yadda...

_**I know how over-due this is but, on the other hand, this chapter is twice as long as usual.**_

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"Patient?" House asked his fellows. He ignored the coffee Taub offered and walked directly to his office. "I'm not hearing anything." He called over his shoulder.

"This could be Mesenteric adenitis." Hadley suggested.

Taub shook his head. "Mes' aden' appears and disappears usually within two weeks."

House returned to the room. "That's if it's bacterial in nature. Other things can cause it." House looked at them. "I gave you the opening - now earn your money."

Foreman spoke. "If it's not bacterial, then it could be the lymph nodes. It can mimic appendicitis but the pain can become systemic. Only problem is, X-ray and CT's are often ineffective at detecting it, unless the lymph's are grossly enlarged."

"Often but not always, so get a CT anyway, and schedule an OR for an exploratory." House said, this time picking up the coffee cup Taub had offered to him earlier and taking a sip. He made a face. "This is cold. And weak. And bitter. And did I mention cold?"

Taub shrugged. "It was warm _and_ smooth _and_ fine when you entered the room ten minutes ago. Plus I like my coffee a little weak."

House flared his nostrils at him. "You are here-by forbidden to touch the coffee maker on penalty of having weak coffee grounds shoved into your underwear _and_ being laughed at _and_ being fired. Though, if you're looking to keep your job by kissing some ass - learning to make your boss strong, hot coffee is a good start."

Taub answered evenly, sounding bored. "Fine. I won't, 'cause I'm not." Then looked at Foreman. "Who's doing the exploratory?"

Foreman looked at House. "Well?"

House shrugged this time. "Cuddy made you da' man. Make da' hard decision."

Foreman rose from his seat. "I'll ask Chase. Hadley and I'll assist."

House nodded his approval. "Good thinking. Juan Valdezenbaum here can stay here and research the fine art of coffee brewing." House looked down into the dregs of his cold, weak coffee. "What I wouldn't give for a Kutner coffee. Just one more reason he should've hung around." House stopped Foreman and Hadley's rapid exit by shoving his cane between them and the glass outer wall. "No one said school's dismissed. I'm still talking."

They reluctantly sat down again.

House frowned at them. "You're both in an awful hurry to get out of here." He turned suspicious eyes on Foreman alone. "When I said she should be getting more, I didn't mean at work."

Hadley ignored him and Foreman folded his hands. "What else, House?"

House suddenly appeared uncomfortable, looking everywhere but at them. Foreman recognized it as a rare moment of House and his emotions laid-bare, hence the explanation behind the deflecting sexual innuendo. House and vulnerable did not play well together. "What's going on?"

House announced to the rubber tip of his cane. "Wilson needs an assistant. Who here wants to work for him part-time?"

Hadley looked at Foreman who looked at Taub who looked back at House. "To do what?"

"To _assist_." House said without explanation to the corner of the table. "Three half days a week. The rest of the time you'll work for me. You will still be paid by me."

"So, no raise obviously." Hadley commented.

House ignored her and spoke to the dregs at the bottom of the coffee cup in his hand. "Anyone? No one?" He sounded puzzled. "_Really?_" To the wall behind Foreman. "This is Wilson of the nice hair, nice smile, nice eyes, so nice-all-around it chokes you."

Taub put up his hand. "I'll do it."

House nodded his approval, a fleeting flicker of gratitude making it all the way up to his eyes. "Good." Soft moment over, House returned to his usual clipped, all-business-with-mocking-too overtones. "It comes with a six percent pay raise."

Hadley frowned. "Why didn't you say so before? I might have taken it in that case."

House stared her down by scrunching his face up to the janitor passing by in the hall. "Because I know Taub doesn't want to be here. And because I wanted whoever volunteered to _want_ to work for Wilson, and to do a good job out of honor, sincerity and love, not with eyes glazed over with dollar signs." House looked at Taub's sleeve. "Though with Taub that's kind of a given."

Taub said. "I do want to be here. I just don't . . . like you much."

House nodded, though seemed un-ruffled by Taub's confession. In fact, Hadley noted, it seemed to relax him. Something familiar. A good, regular, honest dislike, that he could easily process and effortlessly deal with. Believing people universally hated you made human relationships a breeze. It eliminated them for the most part, by simply hating them all back. No need to interact further.

"Well," House was saying to his fingers. "I like you even less, so this works."

Hadley also noticed the little divet between House's brows had deepened over the last few weeks, undoubtedly due to Wilson's recent diagnosis of HIV. Her boss was a demanding, frustrating, pompous ass, but he was also a rare and interesting study of human nature. House was the only person she had ever met who was so closed off that it had in effect become a countenance glaringly obvious. House hid himself as much as possible from common view and in doing so, made himself a curiosity - a spectacle. It also, ironically, rendered him far more exposed to the scrutiny of outsiders then had he simply been able to relax and quietly enjoy being among other humans; just one among the herd.

Taub had threatened to quit a year ago, just after House had returned to work after his mental breakdown (which in and of itself was proof of his inability to effectively deny his intrinsic humanity, however much he tried), and House, with either threats, bribes or public degradation (she didn't know because House never admitted to doing a thing and Taub since had remained mute on the subject), had somehow managed to convince Taub stay. Now House was, in a distant, weird, uniquely House way, being nice to his unhappiest employee. She wondered if Kutner's suicide had changed her boss's outlook on people somehow. Because he all-in-all refused to engage in confessions of the heart, the question for her would remain speculative.

Though, watching him now, doing something that might be construed as nice, and looking so distant and angry about it, told her more about him than if he had simply addressed Taub, stated facts, and left it at that. Much like Foreman's method of communication. But even Foreman's methods required personal, sometimes intimate, human contact and an interchange of respectfully stated ideas. House would find such a method so distasteful as to be rendered impossible for him to carry out. He was terrified of being seen as weak, and she suspected it had nothing to do with being a cripple. Weak meant, in some way known only to himself, that House was or felt defenseless.

House had hated his father. In a rare moment of tremulous honesty, House had said as much. What additional set of background circumstances had lead the man to such a sad picture of family, she wondered. House was a stone wall of contradictions. Pig-headed narrow-mindedness when it came to the traditional values of the strong and powerful, and a forgiving, almost tender understanding of those who had traveled life's bumpier roads. And of that predilection, House was immovable.

With the exception of Wilson, of course. To her knowledge, he was the only person in House's life who could alter the man's behavior with a well placed hand on his shoulder or a disapproving glance. Even Cuddy couldn't reach House to that degree, or that easily.

If House possessed nothing else, he possessed an intense, sometimes nerve-wracking enchantment. About him, you couldn't help but wonder.

She could almost see why Doctor Wilson (who was frequently so _terribly_ nice a guy that at times it was nauseating), might be attracted to him. Almost. They were polar opposites, so she supposed it made some crazy sense.

House explained to the employee he claimed to dislike almost above all others. "You'll be drawing blood, examining patients, running labs. No diagnostics involved at all. It's cancer. Boring. No mystery. Enjoy."

Hadley disguised her own fondness for Taub by giving him a measured look of disapproval. "Deserter."

Taub smiled back at her. "I _like _Doctor Wilson."

-

-

When House entered his office, Wilson immediately closed down his computer screen behind him.

House noted it. "Living with AIDS site?"

Wilson frowned, rolling his chair over the few feet to his regular work desk. "No. What makes you thin-?"

"You were recently diagnosed HIV positive. What else would you be looking at but the horror you think your future is going to be?"

"It's probable."

"It's _possible_." House retorted. "Like winning the lottery is _possible_. Stop being so morose. I got you an assistant. I mean, besides the useless intern Cuddy hired for you."

"Morrison's working out just fine."

"He's nineteen."

"He's twenty-four."

"He's an idiot. Yesterday I saw him roller-skating to work. Who does that in November?"

"Young, athletic, good looking men?"

House frowned, a little suspicious at the way Wilson had worded it. A Wilson-esque attempt to screw with him. "Lame. Look - Taub's going to be working three half days a week for you. You don't even have to pay him -well - _mostly_. I offered him a twelve percent raise half of which you'll have to cover."

"I don't need another assistant."

Unconvinced. "Yes you _do_." House replied. "Besides the paper-work's already on Cuddy's desk with her approval, and your short fellow Jew is jumping around in his patent leather loafers like he was coming to see Moses."

"I don't need help, House." God, it made him nuts that House just assumed he needed what he decided he needed. Then, along with his irritation, Wilson felt a strong sense of de-ja-vu. Countless times, he'd done the same to House. "Who are you, my mother?" His anger quickly abated. The damn HIV med's caused his moods to swing back and forth wildly, like Tarzan on a vine. "I'm a gown man. I've been taking care of myself since I was ten."

"_Ten_?" House repeated. "That's a little weird."

Accusingly "You were the same as me. You were diagnosing your dad at twelve."

"That was different."

"Oh?"

"I was alone with no choice. You had a sweet, Jewish mom and dad, nannies and a maid. But Danny goes off the deep end and James Wilson blames himself. You made yourself your bother's _keeper, _and when Danny wasn't around anymore to save, you drowned your misplaced guilt in becoming _everybody's_ savior."

"Being a keeper didn't seem to do _you_ any harm. There's nothing wrong with worrying about family, House."

"You made yourself responsible for _his_ choices. That's not just caring." House waved his hand high in the air. "That's guilt the size of the Vatican. It's your turn now. Stop trying to be Super man and let someone help you."

"I keep telling you-"

House stood, leaned across the desk and spoke hard words mere inches from his face. "You're _fine_! Yeah. You need nothing and no one. So I guess you don't even need me. You never did."

Wilson turned his eyes down to the paperwork in front of him. Force of habit. Focus on something else for a minute until his swirling thoughts and hapless emotions settled into a mash he could masticate. Softly, reluctantly, "O-of course I need you."

House smiled tightly. The grin of a wolf to his prey. "Prove it. Move in with me."

It sounded like the best solution. It would be so easy to just give in and do what House wanted, like always. But it always came back to the base-line. "You might get infected."

House straightened up. Tapped his cane on the carpet. "Fine. Whatever. Tell me you'll at least take Taub?" Wilson still hesitated. "Come on. He's fat and cuddly, and I already taught him to fetch." Sighing, "_P-l-e-a-s-e_? I can't survive another day of his crappy coffee."

Wilson sighed. "Only if you pay half of the twelve percent."

"Done." Still the wolf smile.

Wilson caught it this time. "Holy crap." He suddenly caught up to House's playing him like a dime-store flute. A little late as usual. "That's all you wanted when you came in here, wasn't it? Moving in with you was just a grenade to get me to swallow the bullet. To get me to cave on Taub." Wilson narrowed his eyes when the remainder of House's manipulation hit home. "_And_ you told him it would be a _six_ percent raise, not twelve! Didn't you? So you're not actually going to have to pay him anything extra, because _I_ just agreed to pay the six percent."

House shrugged, letting Wilson's verbal musings land where they may. "I wanted you to have help. Now you do."

Wilson shook his head. Years and years and years, and he still fell for House's fibbing. From A to B to Gotcha! in an arc the size of Japan. "You're a weasel."

House walked to the door and opened it. With a second, tiny smile of affection. "It's why you love me."

-

-

Foreman and Hadley strolled back into House's office not a half hour after they had left it. "The patient is refusing exploratory surgery." Foreman reported. "He says he doesn't want a scar."

House frowned at them. "Well, talk him into it."

"We spent the last half hour trying to do that." Foreman answered. "The guy refuses."

House poured over a file while he spoke.f

"Who's file?" Hadley asked curiously. It wasn't their patient's because she still had it in her hand.

House looked up. "Who's asking?"

Hadley exchanged telling looks with Foreman. "Wilson gave you his file?" Foreman asked.

"No." House said, clearly annoyed with the interrogation. "Wilson's not in a sharing mood. I therefore _stole_ his file."

Sarcastically, "Because Wilson having a right to his privacy is absurd." Hadley said.

Not biting, "Isn't it??" House said. He took out his cell phone and dialed a number, though still addressing Foreman. "Go and talk to him again. This time tell him that if he doesn't have the exploratory, he'll die."

Foreman shook his head firmly. "I'm not going to lie to the guy." He stood to leave again. "I'll make sure that he clearly understands he's _risking_ his life."

"Wuss." House said and turned his attention back to his cellular. "Taub. Where are you?" House noticed Hadley hadn't moved and put his hand over the mouth piece. "Private call. Go away."

She ignored that and walked to the coffee machine.

Defeated, House entered his own office to complete his call. "Taub. How's Wilson looking? Any calls to his therapist today? How is-?"

A buzzing of irritated words made House pull the phone quickly away from his ear. "No need to get snippy. Did you think this job was just for you? Or just for Wilson? I needed a snitch. Wilson is being an idiot and I needed someone to get me the juice. The tricky part was getting Wilson to pay for it."

After a pause. "Juice is _information_, you moron. Why do you care? You're getting snitch-pay. I need something pertinent so I can use it to de-idiot-ify him." House sat down and lifted his leg up on the corner of the desk with a sigh. "I'm not asking you to read his diary, although I wouldn't be a bit surprised if he had one complete with a teeny, tiny, heart-shaped lock. I need you to keep an eye on him, and tell me whether he's looking worse or better, sad or happy, where he goes, who he see's - you know, the usual." _Lonely or content_.

"Do it or I'll make your life miserable." House rubbed his right thigh absentmindedly as Taub protested in his ear and House said his final word. "Then do it or I'll make _Wilson's_ life miserable, and in turn your life miserable. I'm that talented."

"No?? What do you mean - no!?" House was stunned. His ability to strike terror into little Taub seemed to have weakened over distance. House was suddenly listening to static. Taub had hung up on him.

House shut his phone, then had another thought and opened it again. Dialing a number, he reached an answering service. _"This is Doctor Wilson. Please leave a message and phone number. I'll return your call as soon as I can. Thank-you."_

"Wilson. Dinner. Tonight. My place. Bring food."

Hadley waited until House had finished his calls, then strolled into his office again, this time with a cup of instant tea she had prepared for herself. "Why did you give Taub a raise _after _he'd already agreed to help Wilson?"

"Don't worry, I plan on taking away his parking space."

"He doesn't use the parking space he has. His wife drops him off."

House frowned down at his desk and the un-filled-out billing that mocked him. Cameron wasn't mooning around his office much since she and Chase had hooked up chain and ball. "I meant to say a raise of _point_-six-percent. My bad."

Hadley leaned against House's opened door. She stirred her drink absentmindedly while staring down into the steaming liquid. "I think when Taub threatened to quit, you got worried. You may not like Taub, but you think he's interesting and you _know _he's a good doctor. You also know he needs the money." She looked at her boss. "And you don't want to lose him."

"Is this attempted insight into my kind soul gonna' last much longer? I have some kittens that need filet'-ing."

Hadley nodded. A tight, simple nod just to herself. "You're a jerk, House. That's easy. But what isn't easy is there was no reason for you to give Taub a raise - he wanted the job. And, other than a bit of spying, which we all do anyway, there was nothing in that for _you_. Was this possibly a selfless act? I know it's a forbidden word on your planet, but did you just do something..._nice_?"

House said with a sharp twang of irked. "It _wasn't_. I _didn't_. Go help Foreman do...whatever it is he's probably not doing right."

-

-

At his apartment door, Wilson presented House with a bag of Chinese food. House waved him in.

Wilson put the food on the coffee table. "This is just dinner, right?" He asked as he shed his coat.

House let him take the couch, plopping himself down into his easy chair. "What else would it be?"

Wilson eyed him warily as he sat down on House's old and familiar companion, the leather couch. Many a night spent somewhere between wakefulness and fitful sleep on it's unyielding stuffing. "This isn't some ploy to get me in the bedroom, is it?" On the drive over he had mentally sifted through the most likely suspects as to House's motives for having him over for dinner. Football game recorded from the previous Sunday. Current Saturday night Monster Truck Special. Cards. Shop talk. Extra prescription on the side for something or other. Or, last but most likely, sex.

House shook his head. "Nope. Just company. Conversation."

Wilson sipped his light beer. Allowed under his regime of medication. "Okay, that makes me question this already. You're not one for talking about things, House. Whether it's an extra charge on your phone bill, or if Molly at Mels' Three Bells forgets to extra deep-grease-fry your onion rings, you usually just clam up in disapproval or get extra nutty and talk someone to death."

"Can't a poor, slightly insane cripple, high on multiple drugs change?"

Unthinkable. Preposterous. Wilson shook his head. "No." Painted across the sky in red blood_._

House drank deeply of his own bourbon. _Not_ allowed under his regime of drugs, only he didn't care. "I just wanted to make sure you're okay." He said defensively. "Why can't _I_ be nice once in a while? You don't have a monopoly on it, you know."

Wilson sat back, relaxing. "You've never even invested in it." After a moment Wilson relented. "But, yes, I suppose it's remotely possible that you can be nice if you want to. If you choose to. It's weird, but I can't help but approve."

House swallowed a jigger of his almost full glass of burning alcohol. "Approval enough for a roll in the hay?"

Wilson sat forward again. "House - son-of-a-! This- "

"-A joke! Geez, you've not only lost your common sense, your humor went with it." House looked away across the room. The television was on mute. Boring game anyway.

Wilson sighed and tried to relax once more, putting his feet up on House's coffee table. "A joke. Sure. Fine." He took a deep breath. "So? When do you move into your house?"

"Not yet."

"When?"

"When it's ready."

Wilson didn't like the sound of that. Almost twenty grand of his money went into the thing. Had House bought a lemon? "What's wrong with it? Does it need a roof or something?"

House poured another glass of dark, heady alcohol. If he held the glass up to the light, he could actually see the chemical heat waves rising from the tumbler. He really wanted to get drunk with Wilson, but he knew Wilson would stop at two beers. "I'll move in _after_ you've agreed to move in, too."

Wilson groaned. "Oh god. I _knew_ this wasn't just dinner." Rubbing his eyes, as though to see better what House might think or do or say next, or to ward of the headache that was revving its engine. It wasn't working. Never did. "House, paying for that place and this apartment is going to cost you a fortune. Don't you know that?"

House shook his head, unconcerned. "Sure. Don't care."

"You'd better start caring because I'm _not_ moving in with you."

"I bought that place for us. If you're not moving in, then _I'm_ not moving in. I'll keep paying the mortgage for it, and the rent for my apartment until I run out of savings. Then I'll sell the piano and the guitars, then the car, then the bike, and then my RRSP's and my retirement funds, until you see that moving in with me is the only way you can help me avoid bankruptcy, scandal and early death from over-work and stress."

Wilson nodded. "I see. This is a "bribe". A warped, very House-ish type of _reverse_ blackmail." House acting irresponsible just to get his own way.

Wilson felt the headache arriving. No Tylenol in his pockets. Situation normal.

"Yup." House sipped his bourbon happily.

_Not going to work, House._ "I'd rather see you have twenty years in precarious health and abject poverty than twenty years with HIV and possibly AIDS, and an even earlier death."

House sat back, too, contemplating his glass of the most mysterious and wonderful liquid man ever invented. "As I see it, you have two choices. Door number one: Come into the bedroom with me. I bought extra thick condoms and a new tube of lube. I promise I'll keep the deep-throat kissing down to a minimum. We bang each other like teenagers for hours. _OR_ , door number two: you can go home satisfied that you're doing a noble but ultimately stupid thing by ending our love affair, and then writhe in guilty anguish while you watch me go broke and die."

Wilson nodded. The thought of taking House into the bedroom was tempting beyond belief. He got a little hard just thinking about it. But then another vision of House thin in face, and sick in body quickly vanquished the swelling heat in his groin, leaving behind a hollow fear. "I'd rather have you alive than mine." Wilson answered. "I'm stupid that way."

House sighed. "You're being such an idiot."

"So you keep telling me."

"I can take care of you, you know." House said feebly, tired of tongue.

"No you can't. You're at the hospital all day, sometimes all night. You can't possibl-"

"You'll have your own room, if that's the way you want it. Your privacy. On the days you're feeling too sick to work, I'll stay home. I can do differentials by web-cam. My team does all the rest. I don't have to be there all the time."

"House. you're only well yourself half the time."

"Well, two halves make a whole. And a hole is a beautiful thing, especially if it's a protruding man-hole."

House rolled his neck to the left and stared at his recalcitrant, but good-at-heart ex-lover. Wilson was going for broke this time. He really did care, he just choose the stupidest methods to show it. Looking unblinkingly at Wilson's goofy but gentle profile, House was suddenly feeling very drunk, highly sexed, and even a little sentimental. "Would it make any difference if I said I love you, I miss you, and I'm really, _really_ horny right now?"

House tried a simpering smile but instead drooled leftover bourbon down his chin. As he wiped his mouth on his cotton sleeve, he was overwhelmed with a hunger for some rough, delicious sex, and stricken with a deep-seated need for Wilson to touch him, dribble and all. It had to be the booze. House didn't even know where it had come from, but suddenly, though his eyes remained dry, he wanted to cry into Wilson's expensive, starched shirt. _Definitely_ the booze. "Pity sex will do in a pinch."

Wilson smiled. "I know. Same here, and sorry, but . . ." He shrugged.

House swallowed the whole rest of the glass in three gulps. He had lost this battle, but the war wasn't over. Time for desperate measures.

-

-

"House!"

House turned to see Wilson bearing down on him like a freightliner, complete with steaming exhaust. He stood his ground against the unstoppable force that was Project Wilson: Convince Wilson to see the light of day or die in Wilson's strangling hands, whichever came first.

Wilson stopped in front of him. "I appreciate that you cared enough about me to send Taub to help with my practice. I understand your twisted version of attempted persuasion at dinner. I almost chuckled appropriately at the Stripper-o-gram because it occurred in the privacy of my office. I even didn't get that upset at the Burp-o-gram in the waiting room during my clinic hours, because the poor guy got the hiccups and had to cut it short, but this - _this_ is the intolerable, insensitive, Gregory House jerk-i-fied living end. A half-naked Gorilla-o-gram? In the cafeteria? Singing an altered version of "Wannabe" by the Spice Girls??"

"You don't like the Spice Girls?"

"I don't like my colleagues and my patient's families finding out that I'm gay by hearing "Bang your booty down and grind it all around."

"Catchy."

"Professionally embarrassing, actually. I most especially don't like them hearing it while a Gorilla, naked from the waist down, gives me a lap dance."

"He was wearing pink leotards. The penis was fake."

"Stop this!" Wilson was red to the tips of his ears. "Stop it or so help me I'll never speak to you again as a friend, or as _any_thing."

House pursed his lips. "So I should cancel tomorrow's Condom balloon-o-gram?"

Wilson looked down, hands on angry hips, gathering back some of his scattered patience. "Please." He said with such a tightly formed, but still trembling on the edge control, that his mouth hardly moved.

House watched him storm away, now only slightly less furious than a coal-fired locomotive. "Hmm."

-

-

"Patient still being a moron?" House asked Foreman the next day.

Foreman, bright and bushy-tailed and in at seven, looked at hid watch. "It's ten-thirty." He took note of House's dark glasses and extra slow walk. It seemed House was unwilling to put his feet down too hard on the carpet, like his skull was made of glass and one wrong move -

"You look like shit." Foreman offered, his voice loud and clear.

House gingerly lowered himself into his customary chair at the head of the conference table, laying his head against the back rest. "Any coffee?"

Foreman laughed a bit, and rose to fetch his hung-over boss some revival fluid. "How was your quart of rum?"

House accepted the coffee cup and sipped from it gingerly. It passed inspection and he drank again, more deeply. "It was _bourbon_. It was delicious. Patient, please?"

"Refusing the exploratory as before. Now he's showing all the symptoms of heavy metal toxicity -"

House sat up. "Was there any in the blood tests?"

"No. What ever this is, it-"

House stopped listening. "-it's heavy metal toxicity."

"But we didn't find any-"

"-none that you screened for. What about platinum?"

"That's not used in anything is everyday life, it's even rarer than gold."

House got to his feet, hang-over indulgence temporarily put on hold. "Where's his CT?" House fished them out of the patient's chart himself, hitched quickly to his office, stuck it on the light-box and turning it on. From behind, his patient's abdomen was lit up. House studied it for a moment, then looked aside to Foreman standing only inches away. "See the shadow?"

Foreman squinted his eyes. "Yes. It's a shadow. The guy probably moved."

"N-o-o. It's a shadow caused by something making the shadow. He's not just an idiot, he's a lying idiot."

-

-

House stepped into his patient's room. "You had implants, didn't you?" House pointed to his patient's abdomen with his cane. "Between the anterior layers of muscle. So you would look fit, trim and healthy. Only thing is, one of your implants burst, and has been slowly leaking silicon gel through-out your body. Getting into your lymphatic system, settling in your large and then smaller joints, causing a spreading, systemic, arthritic-like pain. It also set up an immune reaction that caused even more joint swelling and more pain - followed by allergic reactions, one of which was dizziness - a rare one, but in heavy metal toxicity, it can happen."

Gordon looked embarrassed and alarmed. "But these were gel implants, how-?"

"Silicon gel leaks platinum. Even if they don't burst, they still leak. I bet if we tested your urine for this heavy metal, we'd find the levels of platinum salts to be about a thousand times higher than normal." House huffed a sigh. Case solved. Idiot patient saved. "You wanted to keep your pride intact, even more than your life."

"I didn't like who I was before."

House nodded, slipping off the stool to leave. "You better find some way to start, because at the stroke of midnight, slick, you're turning back into a pumpkin."

-

-

It took Wilson two days to cool off enough to make an appearance in House's office. He opened and sort of peeked in.

House looked at him, waiting to see if Wilson was going to say anything. At Wilson's hesitation, House waved him in. "Come in, you idiot. Stand there any longer, you're going to draw spiders."

Wilson walked in as though House were a live wire. "Uh, I just wanted to apologize for yelling at you the other day. I know it was just your maladjusted way of saying you care. I over-reacted."

"True. And I forgive you, though you're still acting like an idiot."

Wilson nodded, expecting nothing else but House expressing his naked thoughts in the bluntest way available. "Right."

"You _really_ hated the Gorilla-o-gram? That one alone cost me a hundred and fifty bucks. I'm going broke trying to educate you." House pulled his bottle of Vicodin from his pocket. A second, smaller item dropped out and rolled toward Wilson's foot. Wilson leaned down and picked it up.

Wilson recognized the item as a small, sealed vial of blood. With horror, he realized what House intended, or at least threatened to intend. "This is my blood."

House stared at the offending thing that had the nerve to disclose his plan of last resort. "Nope."

Wilson held it up for House to see, but not closely enough for House to take it back. "It has my name on it. It has Kleinman's name on it. Have you suddenly gotten into vampire Goth or were you planning something more sinister, and by sinister I mean stupid?"

"What can I say? The idea of a guy with fangs sucking my-"

No. Not even House would be that nuts. Wilson considered. Well, actually, yes he would be. "You're not thinking of transfusing yourself with it?" He hoped. "Is that what you were thinking of doing?"

"That was option ...Eight. After nailing your furniture to the ceiling, doing a strip tease myself in front of your co-oncologist's..."

"Why would you _ever_ consider this as any option?"

"Because you're being an idiot."

"You were planning on transfusing yourself with HIV-tainted blood and _I'm_ the idiot?" House's calm, complacent expression was all the answer he needed. "House, that's insane."

"I'd rather be with you and potentially very sick, than apart from you and sort of so-so well, like the way I am now."

True. House's health no longer glowed. At fifty-one, no one's did, but House, by virtue of heart attacks and gun shots, drug and alcohol abuse, accidents and skull fractures, seizures and very late on-set schizophrenia, barely passed anymore for sort-of well.

Stunned by his friend's dangerously insane show of affection. "You can't do this." Wilson said. Quietly begged.

House put the vial back in his pocket. "Sure I can. Unless you'll move in with me, and let me help you while I'm still healthy - sort of."

Wilson hung his hands at his sides, drained of the battle. "I think you would really do this. You'd really infect yourself just to get what you wanted."

"And to get you what you _need_, but are too damn stubborn to admit."

Wilson rubbed the back of his neck. "I can't beli-...this is so...I..." He sighed.

House dropped the vial into the garbage can. "Relax. I was saving it for my last possible option."

Relieved to see the vial of deadly virus out of House's hands, Wilson softly scolded, "You shouldn't have considered it an option at all." He would retrieve it when House wasn't looking and properly dispose of it.

"How else do I get through to you? If I'm willing to take the damn blood on purpose, then it should be obvious I'm willing to risk getting the damn blood by accident."

"This is nuts."

"Nothing else works on you. You're so goddamn bent on doing what you think is right for everybody else, you ignore what's best for you. And going through this kind of life-altering shit isn't." House said, almost out of breath. Then calmly "Trust me, I've had the pleasure and it sucks."

The war was almost over. House could see Wilson's defenses starting to crumble. He looked like he was about to cry or maybe throw a chair across the room. And with Wilson, House knew, you could never tell which.

"I've gotta' go.." Wilson muttered. Unenthusiastic. Mixed up. ..."work n'...patients..."

House said after his bowed retreating, back. "Right. Call me. We'll do lunch." Clipped words, too short and hard to hold real meaning. But he was too tired to infuse any of it with his customary, thinly veiled sarcasm. That at least might have lightened his own heart, but it would have none of it.

-

-

Wilson dragged himself to the office. Cameron entered from somewhere to his obscure left and walked beside him. She handed him a chart. "Cuddy thought you ought to see this patient."

"Why didn't you give it to Taub?"

"He's not here yet."

Wilson wasn't interested. Without even opening the file, "Wait for Taub."

Cameron thrust it into his hands. "Look at it."

Wilson stopped, set his briefcase on the floor. "Subtle." He said wearily. "This is my file."

"You're a patient."

"I know."

Cameron saw subtly was lost on him. "Wilson. If this were House, or Cuddy or any other patient, you would recommend frequent rest, healthy exercise, home-help, counseling,...when was the last time you talked to your therapist?"

Wilson picked up his briefcase again and started toward the elevator. "She's a relationship counselor."

"You have relationship problems."

"Which have to take second place to my newest problem."

"Why?"

Wilson was tired of everyone thinking they knew exactly what he needed. He needed - wanted- things to go back to the way they were. Before Janele, before his dead son, before any of this last disastrous few months. "Because - " He didn't really know. "There is no relationship to preserve."

"If you were sicker than you are now, and had no choice but to go home, would you allow your parents to care for you?"

Wilson was angered by the question. Very probably yes, but that was not the situation. "No."

"Liar. You know what I think?"

"I'm sure you'll tell me."

"I think you're scared to have the roles you and House have played for years reversed. I know you think this HIV thing is just about you keeping your disease to yourself, but it's not. When my husband was dying he did everything to protect me from it. Even refusing to see my some days. I wanted so much to be there for him, even if it was just to comfort. Near the end, most days he said no."

"Well, I'm sorry about that, but what's your point?"

"I needed to be near him so badly, it was killing me. He pushed me away. Probably wanting to save me the agony of watching him die. I listened and did what he wanted. I was stupid. I wasn't there when he did. I'll regret that forever."

"You're saying you want me to let House near because I'm hurting him by pushing him away. Maybe. But it's for his own good."

"No, it's not. House needs this as much as you do."

"Why? Because he, and you, thinks he can cure me? Save me?"

"No. Because he _can't_." Cameron shoved the file back into his hand. "House wants to be there for you. He wants to take care of you. Don't you see how _extraordinary_ that is? House doesn't even take care of himself. You'll be helping him, too. _Let_ him back in. Allow him to be there for you, because in the end, it's all he'll be able to do." Cameron looked away down the hall, away from her own memories of loving House, and having never been free to take them any further. "It's obvious he loves you. Don't take that away from him. 'Cause it may seem noble, but it's not going to spare anything."

-

-

Wilson slumped in House's visitor's chair. "Fine. I'll move in with you. But if you want this, then there have to be conditions."

House picked up his green lacrosse ball and started tossing it back and forth between his hands. A short, desk-top game of one-man catch. He nodded. "Okay."

"You want to _help_ me? Right? Not have me move in with you so you can get me drunk one night, seduce me into wild, unprotected sex, thereby proving to me that you're indestructible and no single member of my HIV virus-infected body fluid would ever dare to cross swords with Gregory House, the Master of the Universe?"

House screwed up his face a bit at that, but nodded, "Sure. What you said - whatever it was. It took so long, I don't remember it all now."

Wilson withdrew a folded sheet of paper from his back pocket. "If we're going to do this, then I have some rules you'll need to follow."

House leaned back in his chair, dropping the ball and letting it roll off the desk. "Oh, god. Here we go."

Wilson stared at him. "You want this move-in thing?" He held up the sheet. "Then I need this. There are rules here for me, too."

House blew off his misgivings in a display of mock relief. "Oh, that makes it all okay then."

"You want to hear any of this, Mister Sarcasm? 'Cause we could just forget the whole thing."

House laced his fingers together, making a little hammock for his chin. "Read the damn thing."

Wilson pursued its contents. "Okay. Sex."

"Yes, waiter."

Wilson stared him down, cleared his throat and began again. "Sex only once per week, with double condoms for both of us. That'll keep the cross-infection risk down to near zero."

"So blue balls most of the time. Glad to know nothing much in my life is going to change."

"No deep kissing."

"Oh, come on! That's ridicul - "

" - You want this?" Wilson growled at him. "Then this," He waved the list in House's face, "is what _I_ want." Wilson continued. "If I have a cut, no touching at all until it's healed. Ditto for blister or whatever."

"So, no whips or chafing leather crotch cups - got it."

"No showering together."

"Now that's just _stupid._ Why the hell not?"

"Because it would give you ideas. You'd get frisky and forget all about the condom thing. I know you - you love the soapy, slippery side of life."

House pretended to do some mental calculating. "Wow. I think you're going to actually manage to drop my risk to _below_ zero." A seductive little lip twist followed. "And that leaves some wiggle room, and I mean that literally of course."

"No wiggle room."

House sighed despondently. "I suppose we could just jack-off while standing across the room from each other. . ."

"Are you listening?"

"Not really. How many more extra commandments are you going to pile on there, Moses? Psychologically, you've half-way circumcised me already. Can't we call it even?"

"No. There may be even more rules as we go along."

House looked bored now. "You realize I'm just going to ignore most of those, right?"

Wilson was checking off each item as he read through them, like an accountant checking his math. "I realize you're going to _try_."

"Trust a Jew to take all the fun out of sex."

Wilson folded the paper and shoved it across the desk to House. "That' all for now. When are we moving in?"

House shrugged. "This weekend good for you?"

Wilson nodded, rising from his chair. Wilson looked down at him, his eyes inky vats of uncertainty. His insides were clearly still perking doubts. "I'm _not_ infecting you, House."

House nodded. "I know."

-

-

The three beefy moving men conquered their combined belongings in one afternoon. The house was stuffed with furniture and boxes of every description in no time.

Wilson surveyed the week of work ahead. "How did we accumulate so much stuff in one life-time? This is going to take forever to unpack."

"All the better to start ignoring it now." House flopped happily down on Wilson's much softer, and gay-er looking, couch, which had been shoved into one corner of the living room. "Come on,Willie. Let's break in the new place. Top or bottom?"

Wilson waved away House's horny enthusiasm with one hand. "We're not prepared, House. I'll have to go to the pharmacy first."

House rolled his head along the back of the couch. "It's closed." He smiled. "How 'bout a smooch then?"

Wilson shook his head. He was nervous, suddenly, about being alone with House. House was so reckless, insistent and - really - hard to resist. "No way. Not until we have the stuff we need."

House sat forward, resting his elbows on long, muscled thighs. "They don't make condoms for lips, Wilson. I think we can at least risk an exchange of epithelial's."

Wilson raised a flat hand to his new roomie. "Can you give me a few days, please, to get used to this?"

House struggled to his feet. His thigh was cramping badly and he doubted he was up for anything beyond a little necking either. But "Days??" He asked. Unacceptable. "I've got the list of Willie' rules down. You made me memorize the damn thing. And by those rules, it's A-okay to kiss closed-mouthed. come on. We'll do it like good little convent school girls." House waved his cane to Wilson. "Even though you're not Catholic, and I'm not a good little school girl. Or good little boy. Or a little boy." House walked to him. "Anyway, the point is, lay it on me, baby."

Wilson side-stepped him like a shy colt. Despite his leg House was quick on his feet and maneuvered to keep Wilson between himself and any avenue of escape, pinning Wilson between himself and the cramped little foyer with the wooden shoe rack and the folding coat closet, with the wide open living room behind them.

Wilson, realizing he was trapped, raised both hands to ward off House's advances. "House, stop."

"No." House pressed his body closer, until their groins were flush. "I'm sticking to your rules. Now you're going to _stick _to me."

Wilson turned his head to avoid House's lips, but House was too fast. Anticipating Wilson's nervous change of heart, he followed Wilson's movement and captured his mouth on the second try.

Wilson was stiff and uncomfortable for a minute, then relaxed into the kiss. House opened his lips a little and Wilson followed suit, easing into the enjoyment of it. When House tried to stick his tongue in, Wilson wedged his hands between their chests and pushed him away hard, making House stagger back and almost fall.

"House! That's not the rule."

House pressed his own lips together in necking frustration. "One little taste of tongue and you're freaking out."

"I'm HIV positive!"

"So _what_??"

Wilson stared at his lover, confused, scared, incredulous that House would still insist on such a risk. "So what? I'm HIV positive. I could get - I could give you - I might get..."

House stepped closer. He pressed himself in again, but this time gently like a new and fresh love; eager to please. Eager to accommodate; to help. To _be_ there, ready for anything. House bent his head over Wilson's slightly shorter physical being, and over his cowering, terrified psyche', shivering in the corner of he new and most frightening existence, and asked him in the most tender, gentlest voice Wilson had ever heard escape House's lips. "Wilson, ...you could get..._what_?"

Wilson rubbed his face with one hand. "I'm HIV p-positive." Wilson covered his face. "I could get...A-A..."

"What?" House whispered. So softly, so kind. So full of surrounding care and comfort. A lush, warm valley at the foot of frozen slopes. "Baby,...you could get _what_?"

"AIDS." Wilson whispered back, the word was ghost-spoken. Barely there at all. "I could get AIDS." He said again, louder by just a fraction.

Wilson dissolved into tears, a shaking beginning in his body, starting from his toes up, until he was trembling all over. Head to foot and back, he shook like a new-born kitten bereft of its mother's care.

House saw Wilson's sudden, unexpected wobble off his footing, and stepped forward, closing the gap between their two stands. Wilson took that simple move as an invitation to fall forward into space, letting whatever was willing catch him on the way down. That it was House who was there to deflect the impact was a cradle for his troubled mind. House's supportive and strong arms helped him find the unyielding floor without injury, because Wilson's own feet could not support him anymore. His mind fell down right after, but not as hard or sudden, and so keeping him conscious.

House, only one good working leg, preceded his friend to the hardwood, arriving first. Slowly easing Wilson's first fall ever into the pool of his own denial. His previously un-admitted terror that he had been swimming in all alone for many weeks.

Wilson sobbed, burying his face in House's shirt and chest, soaking both through and through. Wilson clawed at his lover who was there now to keep him safe to the end, whatever that was, breaking the skin a bit here and there with his perfectly trimmed, and filed nails.

House didn't mind.

Wilson spent many minutes disappearing into the haven that was House's presence and then reappearing, unable to raise his head at first. House's warm, wise flesh was a den from the storm. Curl up and hide. Never emerge again.

"I-I'm fucking HIV p-pos-." Wilson could hardly articulate the words now. Words that for weeks since his diagnosis, he had been throwing around like discarded peanut shells. Words he had mindlessly chewed between his teeth and spit out as nothing to mind.

House raised his own chin, resting it on the top of his idiotic friend's head. "_Finally_." He said aloud, just enough so Wilson would hear. It said enough; that House had been waiting for this since Cameron had handed Wilson his HIV positive test result.

That day Wilson had reacted like a man playing a role. Nothing new.

But this kind of news meant something new had been needed.

"Finally." House just sat and held him. Grief had caught up to the train long since gone from the station. There was nothing else to do.

House was in pain and wanted to get up, but right now Wilson needed him not stay put. Wilson didn't know that, but House did and he was the only one who needed to know it. Besides, Wilson was sitting on his left leg and House couldn't move even if he wanted to. However, this was helping. This is what friends and lovers did for each other, so House didn't want to move anyway.

Wilson found his voice again. Small. Ineffectual, but clear enough for House's ears right next to him. Right against him, willing, warm and strong. "I'm f-fucking HIV positive, House. I might get AIDS. I-I'm-I don't know what to do. I don't know h-how to deal wuh-with this-s-s."

House nodded, his head bobbing up and down a little on the top of Wilson's mussed up hair. "I know. We'll figure it out."

Being HIV positive wasn't as terrible a thing as Wilson believed, House knew. Wilson just couldn't process the new and awful belief of it quite yet, however much he had been pretending to.

They were in their new home, surrounded by mess. He had Wilson in his arms and Wilson was crying like a baby, though more calmly now, into his cotton shirt, adding to a growing stain of salt-tears and watery snot. Wilson had completely forgotten all about his Superman concern of tear-transferred infection. Wilson was just Wilson again, only better. He was the human version, not the savior of the Universe version. Not the savior of House Wilson. He was the Wilson who needed saving. House snuffed into his friend's soft hair. _Finally!_

House hugged his friend tightly, rubbing his back with one hand in little circles. His own Mom used to do that when as a child his allergies would sock him with chest congestion that bedded him for weeks. It worked then, so it should work here.

Wilson would take some time off now, House thought. Sleep all day and watch television. Call his Mom and cry into the phone. Finally have good sense forced upon him to get some proper rest and decent meals (though still the delivery-with-a-tip type).

Wilson's cancer patients would have to wait, or be served by Taub - as House had planned on. Taub wasn't bad when dealing with people. Most of his co-workers liked him and he knew how to talk to kids. He was a good doctor.

It was quite uncomfortable sitting there on the floor soaked in snot as his lover slowly dissolved into a puddle of Weeping Wilson, House's own body draped and immobilized in the sobbing man's limp, heavy limbs but, all-in-all

Things were looking up.

XXXXXXXXX

Part XIV asap


	14. Chapter 14

One Small Consequence

Part XIVf

By GeeLady

Time-line: Post-season 6 fff

Summary: Once is usually enough when cheating love. Relationship angst and a few other things, too.

Pairing: House/Wilson

Rating: NC-17, Adult, +18, Mature. Language. Sexual situations. SLASH.

Disclaimer: The guy with the cane and the hot a$$ doesn't belong to me, yadda, yadda...

XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX

Wilson woke up on a large bed with fresh sheets and a thick blanket tucked up under his chin. House was curled around him, still asleep.

Wilson yawned long and loud. Fresh oxygen revived his fuzzy morning thoughts a little, but he didn't move. It was so warm, cozy and comforting being snuggled down into soft sheets with the weight of House's limbs hanging all over him.

Wilson yawned again and stretched, creating enough noise and movement to stir House from a deep slumber.

Wilson turned on his side until his sharp nose was only inches from House's. "Morning." He said cheerily.

House cracked one eye. "Mph-g'morg." Then closed it.

"Want do you want for breakfast?"

This time he spoke less through his nose and more via his lips. "Peace and quiet followed by more sleep."

"Come on, it's Sunday morning. We should get up and have a full day."

House turned his head away and spoke into his pillow. "Did your mother drop you when you were little?"

"All you want to do today is sleep?"

House turned his head back just enough for his lips to move freely. "I've a raging case of morning salute. Get us some Texas donuts and we'll play ring-toss." He lifted his face to stare Wilson, one blue eye to a pair of browns. "Other than that - no."

Wilson threw off the covers and bounced from the bed. "Stick in the mud."

House mumbled into his pillow again. "We played _that_ game last night."

Wilson frowned at the crude reference to their love-play. "Come on. Get up. I'll make you your favorite breakfast. That was wheat germ cereal, soy milk and dry cottage cheese, right?"

House turned over, pulling a second pillow from Wilson's side of the bed and piling it on top of his head. Even more muffled "Just for the record - I hate you."

Wilson slipped on a pair of House's pajama bottoms, leaned over and kissed him once on the back of the neck. "Yeah, I hate you, too, lover."

Wilson tossed the covers back over House's naked ass, and stepped into the bathroom. Having a full en-suite just off the bedroom was marvelous. No more trips to a washroom down a long hall with cold morning tiles nipping at his toes. Now he could just wake up, and walk eight or nine steps to a new throne, a fluffy carpet and yesterday's newspaper. It was heaven.

Wilson closed the door to give House some quiet. He emptied his bladder and spent a few moments bent over the sink, washing his hands and the crust of sleep from his eyes. Patting his face dry with a hand towel, he looked in the mirror. Wilson was startled to see his own face because, since last night, it had changed dramatically in the form of a weird, fine rash that began just below his eye sockets, spread around to his ears and down almost to his beard line. Wilson stared at the red-faced man looking back from the mirror. He forced himself not to be appalled by it. It didn't mar his appearance that badly, it just looked odd. Like a range rider with his shirt off. Like he'd sat on a horse out under the hot July sun for three months. Just his face and neck were red, like a leathery old cowboy.

The med's. Had to be. Not a reaction exactly, just the first mark of the future of things to come.

His cheery morning mood vanished. He tried to soothe himself by brewing coffee, toast and generally making with a usual Sunday routine. But after his first few sips of coffee, he felt nauseous. The toast had turned cold and went into the trash untouched.

Wilson killed minutes and thoughts by washing up the previous nights dishes and tidying up the kitchen counter. Some ardent, though cautious, love-making had shunted clean-up to the next morning.

"We're getting your blood checked today."

Wilson started at House's voice from the doorway. "Geez, House, don't creep up like that."

House entered the kitchen, wearing pajama's and a torn tee-shirt, his usual post-coital ensemble. "I didn't creep. You were so absorbed in your own thoughts, you didn't even hear the cane. Which I've been bouncing on the kitchen floor for a couple of minutes by the way."

It was true, he hadn't heard a thing. Deafness wasn't a side effect, was it? "The blood check can wait until Monday."

"You have a rash. That means something."

"It's a side effect of the nucleoside RTI in the cocktail. It's common in HIV treatment."

"Yes. And weekly blood-checks are a common test to monitor the _effects_ of that treatment. Kidney and liver function has to be monitored. We have to keep an eye on your triglycerides and glucose levels."

Wilson didn't mean to snap. "_Yes_ - I know. On Monday." He quickly sighed, calming down. "Sorry."

House pursed his lips, nodding as if in validation of a thought. "And is a factor in moods."

Another side effect of the AIDS cocktail. Some people experienced all of the worst of them, like lipodystrophy and abdominal pain. So far, Wilson knew he'd been lucky that all that had manifested so far was a rash and a general but pervasive sense of light-headedness and fatigue. "Yeah."

House turned. "Okay. Monday it is. I'm going to take a shower."

When House stepped from the bathroom ten minutes later, a thick billow of steam followed him. He dried himself in the bedroom, tossing the towel in the lidless hamper by the dresser, and rummaged around in the closet for jeans and a clean shirt. Their house-keeper/laundress worked Monday, Wednesday and Friday, so having fresh clean clothes on a daily basis was still a novelty.

House opened the bottom drawer on his dresser. The maid, "Val'" Wilson often reminded him, had folded two dozen pair of his cotton boxers and stacked them neatly in the drawer. House slipped on a dark gray pair, his faded jeans - loose-fit for comfort, and a tee-shirt with an image of Grave-Digger on the back.

He entered the kitchen again. Wilson was on the phone. "Wait a second, he's right here." Wilson handed him the phone and House held it to his ear without much interest. "House." He poured a coffee.

"You have a case." It was Cuddy.

"Can you say that again? 'Cause I'm pretty sure I heard you say that I have a _case_, and that's impossible, 'cause it's my day off. If I had a case, it would be Monday, and I'd be at work having this boring conversation with you, though it would be a conversation about something else equally borin-"

"-Shut-up! This is important."

"You think every case is important. You think all people are important, and their sniffles and their used snot-rags. I'm staying home."

"It's Emily Kutner."

House felt his heart speed up and his stomach sink. Testing the waters - "Funny. I never took you for a heckler."

"It's not a joke. She's been to every hospital in New Jersey but ours."

House sampled the coffee. It tasted burnt and bitter. "Symptoms?"

"It's simpler if you just come in." She waited, finally adding "_Please_."

"Next you're going to say it's the least I can do after the way I talked to her and her husband."

"Your words, House, not mine." Cuddy sighed into the line. "She's swollen, in pain, and coughing."

House stared into the black remnants of his coffee. "Where's the husband?"

"He's in my office, sick with worry. I promised him I'd have my best doctor on it."

"Call Foreman and Thirteen in, too"

"So you'll come?"

"Didn't I just say that?"

Wilson had been listening from the small kitchen table by the bay window. Outside was a tidy lawn with lilac bushes that would bloom full and fragrant in the spring. It really was a cozy, tasteful little house. "Big case?"

House looked over at him. "You'll be fine for a few hours?"

"Of course. Take all day if you need to."

House felt like he was abandoning one patient for another, but just nodded. "Thanks."

-

-

"D-D-x, people." House stated when he entered the conference room. Foreman and Thirteen were already there. "Where's Taub?"

Thirteen said "At home, he worked seven straight last week."

"He often works seven straight. It's called _Fellow-shipping_."

Foreman offered, "Four of those were doubles. Wilson's practice was busy, too."

House frowned. His plan of having Taub work for Wilson three half days a week seemed to have turned into a second nearly full-time job for his shortest employee. "Get him on the phone."

Foreman dialed and set the call up to speaker. When Taub answered, House didn't wait but plunged in. "Differential diagnosis. Female. Sixty-one years old presents with systemic edema, abdominal pain and a persistent cough. Three other hospitals - clueless."

Taub's annoyance was loud and clear. "This is the first day off I've had in two weeks."

House ignored him.

Taub's wife could be heard in the background, encouraging him to hang up on his boss. Taub said "Fine. What's the history?"

House remembered the mother's insulted, injured face as House had spouted off, without thinking, that much of Kutner's unhappiness must have been the fault of his parents. "Diabetic family, but patient isn't. History of heart problems on her dad's side. Heart checked out."

"The coughing could just be a side effect of the edema, which could be affecting her pulmonary cavity, so finding the cause for the edema might be simpler."

House glared at the phone. "Wow. Sure glad I called _you_." He looked at the rest of them. "Well?"

Thirteen frowned. House seemed uptight, anxious, distracted. "Who is this patient? And where's her chart?"

House scratched his cheek as though trying to remember. "I already read the chart - nothing there. And I think she's a sick person, who won't get better if someone keeps asking pointless questions." House looked at each of them, walking back and forth. He scratched at his neck. His fingers never stayed still for a moment."

"Are you all right?" Foreman asked.

House glared. "I'm not the _patient_. Now what else? Anyone got anything better than Taub's suggestion that we ignore the cough?"

"Does she drink?" Foreman asked. "A lot?"

House paused. "Good question." The funeral was over a year ago. Maybe Mom wasn't over losing her secretly miserable only child. "I think the paramedics would have noticed the pungent stink of alcohol breath." House pointed out. He frowned. "Unless she drinks only tiny amounts, but lacks a certain gene..."

Thirteen spoke. "Alcohol flush syndrome. The symptoms fit."

House nodded, going through the list. "Drop in blood pressure causes build up of fluid in the system resulting in edema and fatigue, increased heart rate and nausea are interpreted by the patient as "pain" or "discomfort". Body can't completely metabolize alcohol. The body can break it down into acetaldehyde but not into vinegar, which builds up in the cells. The poison builds up in her system, causing all of the above reactions." House looked at them. "Tests?"

Taub said over the speaker phone "A-L-D-H-TWO-TWO. Genetic SNP test. It'll take a year and probably tell us nothing. Use kidney dialysis to flush out the acetaldehyde. If it's there, she gets better. If not, Thirteen was wrong."

"Right." House stabbed his finger on the speaker disconnect button, and said to Thirteen and Foreman. "Go and clean out her kidneys."

"Why don't we just ask her if she drinks?" Thirteen suggested.

Foreman rose from his seat. "If she had been, the nurses would have made a note. This is probably a reaction from a very small amount of alcohol. A-L-D-H-TWO-TWO's only need an ounce to start feeling sick."

Thirteen kept looking over at House. "Why can't _we_ see the chart?"

House's voice rose just a fraction, and it told her to ask no more questions after that. "_You_ don't need it. We've diagnosed her. Go."

"Should I pull Taub from home?"

"Why?" House asked, though abruptly turning and walking through the door to his office, clearly not seeking an answer.

Thirteen left to join Foreman. As stoic and emotionally reserved a man as Eric was, at least he could be understood without turning everything into mental puzzles and mind games. Daily having to transverse the twisting maze that was the workings of House's mind, was exhausting.

-

-

When House opened the front door, a pleasant odor filled his nostrils. Wilson was cooking, his favorite hobby. And because Wilson was a good cook, it was _House's_ favorite hobby _for_ Wilson. Among his other past-times, such as bowling and clothes shopping. They had a walk-in closet and every rack was filled with Wilson's suits and shirts, casuals, and dress. He even owned his own tuxedo. Still Wilson managed to find reasons to buy more.

House had exactly one three foot space for everything he owned in the same closet.

House hung up his coat on Wilson's new wood and marble coat rack that he had stuck by the front door just for House. The first week after moving in to their two bedroom bungalow, Wilson had spent hours picking up House's jackets and coats off the back of the couch, walking them the twelve feet to the high, cherry-wood clothes boudoir, and hanging them up properly. After scolding House every day for a week, it occurred to him that House's leg probably hurt a lot at the end of the day, and any extra twelve feet of walking saved meant that much less time he'd have to endure the pain before it was time for his evening pain med's, which just barely did the job as it was, and not nearly as quickly nor as thoroughly as the Vicodin had done. House was once again on the wagon, trying to put his Vicodin days behind him. Pain was once again his constant daily companion.

Wilson had purchased the coat rack the next day after apologizing to his roomie. House had seemed quietly pleased at the gesture. To Wilson's shock, House had even _thanked_ him.

"What're you cooking?"

Wilson turned and managed to steal a kiss from House as he walked by. House was not given to random displays of affection, and to get a kiss outside the bedroom, Wilson often had to resort to playing the sneak. "Jambalaya rice and vegetables, and marinated chicken breasts." Wilson stirred his pots like a domesticated house-husband. "How's the case?"

"Good. Done."

"That was quick." And House had answered just as swiftly. Which meant he didn't want to talk about it, which meant something about it was bothering him, even though the case was supposedly over. "Interesting?" Wilson asked.

"No."

As he pretended to look over the recipe in his thick cook-book, Wilson stole a glance at his lover. "Can't you give me any details?"

"Alcohol flush syndrome. Kidney dialysis. Boring."

Wilson decided to stop there. House had been gone five hours. If it had been so simple and boring, why was he such a long time at the hospital? "Okay. Dinner'll be about twenty minutes."

House nodded and got to his feet. Wilson watched him walk from the kitchen and through the living room, until he disappeared down the hallway to the main bathroom. House was limping heavily. Either his pain med's weren't doing the job, or something was causing him to feel the pain more than usual. Wilson heard the shower start.

Wilson set the table, and turned on some soft, soothing blues music. Hopefully it would help House's mood. Dinner was on the table and Wilson was sipping at some de-alcoholized beer. He checked the clock on the stove. House had been showering for half an hour.

Wilson got up. Probably leg pain. A nice, hot soak often eased it, House had once mentioned. Except it was the shower that was running. _Still._ Wilson hurried his steps a little, and opened the door. Steam billowed out into the hall, instantly condensing on the cooler walls. The bathroom was as hot as a sauna.

Wilson had purchased a new shower curtain after they moved in, a thick plastic, see-through type that hung ceiling to floor (House was a splasher). Wilson liked seeing House naked and got few chances to ogle him outside the bedroom, and then only when it was an agreed-upon sex-night. House, after all these years, was still self-conscious about his leg. Even with his lover.

"House? Are you okay in there?" Behind the curtain, House's form could be seen, sitting down in the tub.

"Yeah." He answered. "Fine."

A hitch in the breath. Strained words. Painful delivery. Speech like an after-thought. House sounded..._off_. Wilson whipped the shower curtain back.

House was sitting on the bottom of the tub, letting the water rain over him and whoosh down the drain in a great whirlpool. His legs were bent double and hugged up tight to his chest. He had his arms wrapped around them, fingers dug in, clawed firmly to the skin of the opposite elbow, staring directly ahead at the tiled shower-stall at the other end of the tub from himself. The cream-colored ceramic shone from the maid's twice weekly scrubbing. House's reflection rested just on and just inside the surface of their sparkle. An unmoving, unreal House who would disappear as soon as the water was turned off and the towels reached for.

House himself looked as white and as motionless as the porcelain he sat in.

Wilson knelt down, not liking the look on House's drawn face at all. He seemed frozen to the spot. Puzzled, worried, scared. All of those things, but disbelief topped them all.

"What's wrong?" Wilson asked. This was becoming a little frightening for him, too.

House bit his lip. "It was only the one time." He said quietly. Matter-of-factly. "This wasn't supposed to _happen_ again."

Wilson ran his fingers through the flat curls on House's head. After Mayfield he had allowed his hair to grow in again, and it was back to its unruly state. "What wasn't supposed to happen?"

House frowned, and asked him most seriously. "Did I really go to the hospital today?"

Wilson's own fears mounted, and he could hardly form the word._ "What?" _A strangled whisper. "Y-yes. Of course. You solved the case."

House finally looked at him, but only for a second or two. Then moved his gaze back to the tiles. House was staring at something, and Wilson doubted it was his own ghostly image. Wilson didn't know what was reflected there. All he saw was a man crouched down, wrapped around himself, trying to crawl into his own skin.

House asked. "I guess you don't see him, huh?"

_A shiver of fear ran up Wilson's spine. Oh, Jesus!. _Once again, Wilson tried to recall where his own attention had he been focused back when House was being taken apart at the seams, right under their noses.

Wilson reached up and turned off the water, soaking the left arm of his shirt and chest. "Who do you see, House?"

House didn't say. He appeared reluctant to admit anything; maybe afraid to say the words that would make him sound as crazy as he probably thought he looked.

Wilson reasoned with him. "You know that who - or what - ever it is, _isn't_ a failure, right? It's just the med's. Nolan will have to adjust them."

"Nolan said it was over. That this wouldn't happen anymore. Some psychiatrist he turned out to be."

Actually Nolan had been, Wilson knew, crucial in House's recovery. An absolute match for House intellectually, and in his possession held of a streak of stubborn-ness that rivaled House from fist to bone.

"Who do you see?" _Please not Amber again. Let her be gone, now, from him._ Wilson himself had gently sent away all but the most treasured images of her when he realized he was in love with House. He no longer wanted her memory competing for the primary place in his heart. House needed it all now, and he was worth the sacrifice.

House stared up at him. "How do I know _you're_ real?" He looked around the bathroom. "Or that any of this is real? Maybe I'm not here at all?"

Wilson felt the ground shift beneath him. "House..."

House wasn't listening. "Maybe you don't have HIV." He whispered to himself just in the range of hearing ears. "That would be good, but...but maybe we don't really live in this house. Maybe I'm still back there, strapped down, detoxing or,..or _worse_."

What could be worse than this? "House, _no._ You're _here_. _I'm_ here - "

"- Maybe I'm completely insane now, and all of this is just an elaborate psychotic episode that isn't responding to treatment? I might already be completely _gone_."

Wilson pried House's left hand from its iron grip around his knees and held onto it fiercely, for dear life and sanity. "See? House! - _feel _this. I'm _real_. This is _all_ real."

House lifted a frightened face and stared into his eyes like a man inside a dream looking out on another dream, and Wilson got the terrible feeling that House might be slipping away.

"Cuddy felt real." House simply said. Stated as indisputable fact. An argument Wilson knew he could not win.

Okay_, that_ tore it. Time to call in the Calvary. Wilson gripped House's hand in his own. "I want you to sit here and not move, okay?" Wilson searched his lover's eyes for recognition that, at the very least, he agreed it was a good idea to stay put for now. "_Okay_? Until we can determine if this is real or not. Just stay here. We need to do a DDx. You always say guessing is just being lazy."

House nodded. Yes, his eyes seem to affirm, a differential would be the thing. "In the meantime I want you to look at your feet. Not at anything else." Wilson searched House's expression for cooperation. "Did you hear me? Do it as a favor to me. Look at your feet and nothing else."

House stared dully down at his water-pruned toes, and some other, smaller reason emerged again from inside his own head. Reason that did not look toward returning psychosis as the only explanation for what was happening. Yes, he understood. Good ol' real-illusion Wilson. Always there-but-maybe-not to lend a calming hand of real-imaginary support and comfort. It was one of the reasons he loved him. That is, if Wilson was really there with him, kneeling beside the tub, and if the love he felt wasn't just a chemical disturbance in a mind set to puree'. But he wanted to say he tried. "Okay."

Wilson needed to know, though, before he made the call to Nolan. Nolan would ask. "Who are you seeing, House?"

House stared back mutely. Then back at the thing in the tiles that House saw as clear as day but where Wilson saw only his suffering lover. He looked back down at his toes, shivering in the tub along with the rest of him. "Kutner."

-

-

While waiting for Nolan to make his emergency house-call, which was an hour and half away, Wilson helped House out of the tub. But House would only cooperate after Wilson handed him a towel to cover his nakedness first. "I don't want Kutner to see me naked. Bad enough he's in the room at all."

Wilson tried not to consider the implications of how real Kutner must seem to House. Wilson helped House dry off and found him some dry clothes to step into, his work clothes, still laying on the bathroom floor, were soaked through and through.

House obeyed Wilson's suggestion to sit on the couch until Nolan showed up. He handed House a cup of hot water with a shot of bourbon in it.

House looked down into the cup, and sniffed. "I'm not supposed to have this."

Wilson sat beside him. "Let's make an exception just for today."

House nodded. "Okay." No argument. No protest of any kind and that was almost as scary as the bathtub. House simply drank it down.

Wilson willed for Nolan to floor-it and make it here before his own head exploded from worry and fright.

Finally, after what seemed like hours, the door-bell sounded. "Don't move." He said to House, who stayed right where he was, as obedient as a trained puppy. That was scarier still.

"Hello, Doctor Nolan." Wilson shook his hand. "Thank you for coming." He lead Nolan right to the couch, where Nolan, making no comment of Wilson's beet-rashed face, took a few seconds to study his out-patient.

Wilson muttered words about coffee and muffins and left them alone.

Nolan eased his aching back down on the couch just a foot or two from House, who looked at him but didn't acknowledge his reality just yet.

"Wilson tells me you had quite a scare in the bathroom."

House laughed a little under his breath. "Not sure." He looked to his right where the black doctor sat, hoping so much that he was real, his chest was tight with the pain of it. On the edge of hope and wanting to step over into belief - "Don't know what's real anymore." He hoped Nolan could straighten that out again. "_There_." House said, "Do your worst, Dumbledore."

Nolan ignored the reference. "Who did you see?" Better to leave assumptions alone for now. If House thought he saw someone, talking about it and finding out why was the best first step. Always. Step number two was trying an adjustment of his med's to see if it improved things. But the _why_ House was seeing whoever he was seeing was under-written by more than simple brain chemistry, and superceded the first two numbers, even if it showed its face last.

"Kutner."

Nolan nodded. House's employee who had committed suicide just weeks before House came to him at Mayfield, suffering at that time from an as yet undiagnosed psychosis. Hallucinating dead people. Seeing and feeling things that never happened. A heavy load to carry for a man so dependant on his own intellect as was Doctor Gregory House.

Just to be sure - "The man who shot himself." Nolan clarified.

House nodded.

"Did he say anything? Did you talk?"

House shook his head. "No. He was just..."

"Just what?"

"Bleeding." House cupped his right hand to his temple. "From a hole in his skull. Blood and...brain material."

Nolan nodded. "Well, we both know Kutner is dead and we know that because other people know it too. They even went to his funeral. You, however, hung around his apartment, and looked at his blood."

"I wasn't gravestone-ing. I was trying to find out why he died."

"You were trying to fix what could not be fixed. Show everybody the," Nolan made little rabbit ears in the air with his fingers, "mistake"; prove that he was murdered, and well, that would prove you hadn't actually missed anything. A murder instead of a suicide would have absolved you."

"Of what? His death? I didn't kill him."

"Of your guilt _over_ his death. Maybe you think you were partly responsible; didn't treat as well as you could have."

"I was trying to solve a mystery."

"You were trying to repair what you saw as your own failure."

House sat very still. He seethed with Nolan's words, hating each and every right and truthful one. "I could have been right." He said weakly. "He might have been murdered."

"He wasn't. You weren't." Nolan tried a different tact. "You spoke to his parents..."

"Yes - _months_ ago. So why would he show up now? Why not then?"

"He did."

"Only the _one_ time. This wasn't supposed to happen again. You were supposed to _cure_ me."

"Lots of illnesses remiss and relapse. It's possible that a change in your med's will keep this from recurring, but can you think of anything, something at work or in your personal life, that might have triggered this episode?"

"Maybe it's not an episode. Maybe _this_-" He gestured back and forth between himself a Nolan using the handle of his cane, "-is an episode."

"Have you ever hallucinated your father?"

"No."

"Why do you suppose that is? He died a few months before Kutner did, yet you have never spoken of seeing him."

"I never talked to him when he was alive, why would I after he's dead?"

"So his death was real and you know it because you responded to it as you expected to - with a bit of regret maybe for what you both missed out on, but mostly indifference."

"So what?"

"So, if his death was real, Amber's death was also real and Kutner's as well. Why would all of that be real but your emotional upheaval about it _not_ be?"

"Easy reasoning. _I_ need to be sure."

"There is a treatment that will make it sure for you. You'll have no doubts left."

"What cure?"

"Time. It's a hard educator, but in the end, it's the only sure-fire soothe-sayer. In time, these hallucinations will ease and then stop altogether. So, the only question remaining is - why do you think you saw Kutner tonight in your bathroom?"

House shook his head. Closed his eyes and tried to think. "Maybe...but it should not make a difference."

Nolan was intrigued, but not surprised. There was always a truth kept hidden for a while, until the patient himself could face it. Letting go of something that so powerfully motivated a man to hide it in the first place, was to risk exposing his most secret fears to outsiders. And that meant risk of scorn and being labeled weak or, worse, a failure.

"Kutner's mother."

Wilson returned to the living-room in time to hear House say it. He set down coffee, sugar, cream, and some muffins he'd baked last week and frozen. They filled the room with their re-warmed blueberry goodness.

Nolan recalled his past sessions with House. They had touched on Kutner, but not gotten far with it. However, House had been marked as healthy enough to work with him as an out-patient, and so released. "You went to see Kutner's parents, after he died."

House didn't lift his eyes this time. He spoke to the tray of untouched muffins. "I blamed them for it."

Nolan didn't say anything more. He felt House might reveal something very deeply hidden here. Things he had mashed down inside and let simmer for months, until all the water boiled off and nothing was left but the distasteful burnt lumps of, Nolan guessed, toxic guilt.

"I told them they should have seen it. His depression and whatever else made him decide to eat a bullet at twenty-eight years of age."

"You were fond of him." Not a question.

House looked sharply at Nolan. How dare you accuse me of that weakest of positions. Guardedly "He was my employee. I worked with him."

"You saw him every day." Nolan added softly "But you didn't see anything amiss either, and I think you're blaming yourself for that."

"Now _you're_ delusional."

"You learned not to lie to me, Greg. Why start now?" Nolan shifted sideways, making House do the same if he still wanted to see his face. "I think you cared about that young man. During our sessions you called him a "good kid"; "smart"; "funny" - you said that "he had guts". To me, that sounds more like personal observations rather than professional." Doctor Nolan sighed, as though a few things were finally tying themselves together into a knot that made some sense. A few loose ends House had left behind when Nolan had signed his discharge papers. "And you didn't notice that he was miserable. You failed a _friend_."

House clasped his hands together around his cane, his knuckles white. "I should have seen it. I'm a diagnostician. It's what I do - I'm a genius at it."

"Yes, you are. Yet you failed to see Lawrence's misery, and so you blame yourself for his death, just like you blamed yourself for Amber's."

In the kitchen, Wilson stood very still over the sink, not running water, not doing dishes, not doing anything but listening to some very deep and painful things that House had never told him. Agonizing things only his psychiatrist had been privy to. Not only did House blame himself for his perceived failures, he punished himself for them, too. Wilson wiped away the few tears that had escaped his own tired eyes and sat in one of the ornately carved chairs he had bought for their new kitchen only days before. Having nice things in one's life, even surrounding oneself by them, did little to ease the agonies of living.

House had been silent for a moment or so. Then "I should have seen it. I can't understand why I didn't...how I could have _missed_ it."

"It shocked you - his suicide." Nolan spoke very calmly and gently now. "Because the same thought has crossed your own mind once or twice."

Wilson held his breath. Nolan meant House. Wilson himself had seen House come close to the very act, recalling in shame that he had turned on his heel and walked away.

Wilson heard House's voice catch and then muffled crying. Mouth and nose covered by hands. Weakness stifled from other's ears. Tears hidden from other's eyes. For years House had tried to show no crack in the barriers he'd spent a life-time building. Until Nolan had come along and gently, but expertly, taken it apart. Taken it, in fact, down a good level or two.

House snuffed. The short crying jag was over. Wilson was beside himself with sorrow and joy that House was not only feeling an emotion or two, he was letting them leak through here and there. Nolan must be a genius himself.

"If I'd seen it," House said, "maybe I could have...stopped him."

"Oh?" It was time to pull the hair-shirted carpet out from under House's feet. "So you believe you were the one and only person, the one and only event, that might have stopped Kutner from blowing his brains all over his bedroom?"

"I was supposed to watch ov-, I'm supposed to know my employees. I dig, I investigate, I learn things - I _know_ who they are." A confession. Another first. Nolan was a wizard in that he seemed to know when to be gentle with his words, and when to be stark and merciless. One thing Nolan made certain of, though (as he had once explained to Wilson after House was sent home), was to _never_ lie to a patient. _"As a psychiatrist, tell one lie to a patient, and nothing you say will be will trusted again. Nothing you do will hold truth for them. It's a mistaken belief I've seen therapists make before, and I learned from it: Just because your patient is crazy, doesn't mean he's stupid." _

"Kutner had a life beyond the job, Greg." Nolan reminded House. "There were probably a dozen other factors that lead him down that road. You're very clever but you don't know everything. You seem to think that whatever you did know about him should have given you enough information, enough clues, to peer into his soul. You're no magician, no psychic. You think you should have been able to see what was happening, and if-so-fact-o, saved his life, but you have no control over who lives or dies or _when_, no matter how smart you are."

House chewed over that for a moment. "I guess." There was still hesitation there. "So - what? - Kutner got in the bathtub with me because his mother came to me for help? Doesn't make a lot of sense."

"You blamed her, and the dad, at the time. Guilt over that. You blamed yourself more. Self-loathing over that. You regularly stuff that sharpened conscience of yours so far down in your gut, the only way your mind can make you look at yourself is through the eyes of those you cared about; the ones you made yourself responsible for. Lord knows you never listen to the people around you who are still _alive_."

House let a ghost of a smile form. It was true enough. "Why didn't I hallucinate my father?"

"You choose not to care about him when you were a child. His opinion of you might have meant something to you once, but that was a long time ago, so there's no guilt, and he hadn't made a mark in your life for decades. Hallucinating him would have merely pissed you off, but you'd feel nothing else about it."

House rubbed his face in one hand, trying to will the whole evening back down into the rotten cellar of his churned-up feelings. "So what now? Do I just keep on seeing people I think I've wronged. 'Cause if that's the case, Wilson's going to have make a few hundred dozen more muffins."

Nolan let himself enjoy the little joke. "You're a doctor." Nolan said it as though House had forgotten. "What happens is we adjust your med's. You've had break-through pain before. Consider this a break-through hallucination. Then we monitor your condition, just like always."

"That's it?"

"That's it."

"You're not going to lock me up again?"

"No, but if you're missing all the good times, I can get a room ready..."

House smiled, more than a ghost's. Almost a fraction. "Thanks, I'll pass."

Nolan drank his coffee and politely ate a buttery muffin. "I'll send around a new prescription." He said a thanks to Wilson and made certain to shake his patient's hand. Tactile connection, Wilson guessed. A reaffirmation of intimacy from shrink to success-case. Wilson closed and locked the front door.

He sat beside House and picked at a muffin, saying nothing. If House wanted to talk, fine. If not, that was fine, too.

House tapped his cane on the hard wood, and let out an exhausted breath. "Sorry. I'm the one who's supposed to be taking care of you."

Wilson had a sudden, modest epiphany - House was just as bad as he was when it came to wanting to save the world. Wilson understood that he himself liked to do it by caring one-by-one, even if it meant little lies. Often more caring than was required or even wanted.

House did it by trying to understand every thing about everyone, then act accordingly, in either praise or an uncontrollable urge to point out their own raving stupidity by any way possible; by means humble or insane.

_How alike we are, after all_. The methods, though, couldn't be more divergent. "How about we just try to take care of each other?"

The phone rang. House reached for the living-room hand-set sitting off to one side on a low end-table.

Wilson stopped him. "Just leave it."

House shrugged helplessly. "Still got a case; my latest hallucination's non-hallucinatory mom. Sorry." He picked up the hand-set. "House." He listened for a moment. "What difference does it make? She's still the patient." A short pause, then in clipped words "Well, _now_ you know. Keep an eye on her stat's. I'll be there in the morning." He hung up.

"Who was that?"

House took a deep breath. "Foreman. Kutner's mom - Emily - is in a coma."

-

XXXXXXXXX

Part XV asap


	15. Chapter 15

One Small Consequence

Part XV

By GeeLadyf

Time-line: Post-season 6

Summary: Once is usually enough when cheating love. Relationship angst and a few other things, too.

Pairing: House/Wilson

Rating: NC-17, Adult, +18, Mature. Language. Sexual situations. SLASH.

Disclaimer: The guy with the cane and the hot a$$ doesn't belong to me, yadda, yadda...

XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX

Foreman felt the wind on his scalp when a brown paper bag of pastry-or-other flew by his head and landed on the conference table right in front of Taub.

"Here." House announced. "Thanks for the Bear-Claws."

Taub gave House a look that Foreman couldn't quite place, but Taub opened the bag without further ado. "Honey-glaze." He announced.

Foreman pulled one from the bag for himself. "They're a little crushed." He bit into a sorry looking, golden ring sadly flattened on one side. "Did you sit on them?"

The evil eye House gave Foreman said in no uncertain terms where he could stick the donut. House pulled up his own chair at the head of the oblong table. "You try carrying a bag of warm, soft donuts in your lap on a motorcycle in the driving sleet. It isn't as gayly erotic as you _hope_ it will feel."

Taub dropped his donut on the table with a face that said _Crotch donuts?_

Foreman turned around and looked outside. Sometime between when he'd left home and arrived at the hospital, the chilly morning rain and blustering wind had turned to driving sleet. He raised one eyebrow and went back to his donut.

House suddenly stood up again and limped to the coffee machine. "No coffee?"

Foreman said. "I forgot."

Taub just read through the last blood work-up of Emily Kutner and munched his squished donut, but reminded House - "And I'm not allowed."

In an uncharacteristic display of displeasure, House slammed the pot down. "Thanks!"

Foreman and Taub exchanged glances that said it was going to be one of _those_ days. A day when it was impossible to know how House was feeling from one moment to the next. A volatile House day.

Foreman, no patience for House's petulance, said "I'll have some delivered from the cafeteria, okay? Now can we get back to the patient, who hasn't had any coffee today, or donuts, or even consciousness."

House kept his eyes averted and re-took his seat. His hand steadily kneaded his right thigh as Foreman brought him up-to-date on the condition of his patient. "Emily slipped into a coma last evening. O2 sat's are fine. Heart-rate normal. In-put/out-put normal - "

House's own micro-dot of patience vanished. "Yeah, yeah - what _isn't_ normal? If everything was really normal, she'd be at home scrap booking the funeral cards." House said it before he even knew it had escaped and tried to choke back the last two words, without success. "Or...something else retirement ladies do in their golden years." He added in a hurry, as though he was suddenly angry and impatient with speech itself.

Foreman decided to ignore the particularly crass joke and said "The only thing weird is, her urine has a higher than normal salt concentration, just as if she had been drinking."

Taub folded his hands. "But we know she wasn't, so what else?"

House glowered, wanting to snark that, as boss, he was the only one allowed to ask the questions but, after his previous faux pas, decided to bite his tongue. "Then why the hell is she in a coma?" House suddenly realized he was short one Fellow. "Where's your Unlucky number?"

"She had a doctor's appointment today."

House frowned. "I thought her doctor was at this hospital? I thought her doctor was the black guy sitting at this table? The doctor who's seen her naked and refuses to share?"

Foreman said, his tone a warning. "Keep your nose out of it, House. She's been feeling run-down so she wanted to consult another Huntington specialist at Mercy."

House nodded his head once. A big, rooster-like dip of his head. "Right." He said, not believing it for a second. "Is that what she told you?"

"Yes." Foreman enunciated perfectly. "Some relationships don't have to go through years of jealous, petty, bitter, self-centered agony until they reach an equilibrium where they can just barely communicate or tolerate each other. Like for example, oh-I-don't-know, you and Wilson."

"Ah." House pressed his lips together, pretending to sort it out. "You forgot self-righteous."

"If you're both done comparing who's dick is happier, I think we should ask the husband if his wife has done any mountaineering recently."

House raised his eyebrows, surprised. He grabbed a donut for himself and began to chew. "Carb's feed the brain." House looked at Foreman. "Taub's fatter than you, see my petty, bitterly communicated point?" Back to Taub "You think it's altitude sickness? She's seventy years old and thirty pounds overweight."

"It could have been a driving trip. Shall I ask the husband?"

House shook his head. "He might say no."

Foreman gave House a questioning look. "Why would he not answer a simple question about a afternoon drive in the country?"

"He might say yes to that, and no to the CT." House explained.

"So just do the test?" Taub asked. "Symptoms fit. Everything but the coma. And if the CT shows cerebral bleeds..."

Foreman finished. "That's at least _part_ of our answer."

House took another bite. "Go forth, Fat Smart Boy and Self-Righteous Penis - CT the victim. I and the Super-donuts shall hold down the lair."

Foreman rolled his eyes at House, anxious to get away from his shifting moods. As the door to the conference room swung shut, he thumbed back toward where House was still seated. "What was that crack back in the Bat-cave about the Bear Claws supposed to mean anyway?"

"A long, annoying, very House-prickly story." Taub pistoned his shorter legs that much faster to try and put some distance between himself and Foreman's endless questions. His colleague's curiosity was almost as bad as House's.

Foreman easily kept pace. "Even forgetting the Bear Claws part - he said _thanks_."

Taub sighed, bored with the conversation. "A year ago, I quit. House told me I'd come crawling back and when I did, to bring donuts. I stand before you. Thus - Bear Claws."

"He waited a year to say thanks for a box of donuts?" Foreman wasn't so much questioning it, as puzzled by it. "That's weird for anyone. For House, it's - "

" - screwing with me and, by proxy, you. That's all it is."

For a second Foreman allowed himself to speculate whether House's Bear Claw comment had been a comfort-food apology because House's six months in psychiatric re-hab might have actually done the man some good. A Kinder-Gentler-Grumpy House? He shook off the idea. "Yeah, right."

-

-

"Nothing on the scan." Taub reported to House. He entered his boss's office and thrust the film at House who was seated at his desk. He wasn't playing his game-boy, or staring at porn, or reading, or even playing with his green ball. He was merely sitting, picking at his bottom lip.

House took the scan and held it up to the light.

Taub felt himself bursting at the seams. He finally blurted - "Why the six percent pay raise? I had already agreed to take the job."

House stared at him. So long and silently that Taub started to fidget under the unblinking gaze. House finally took a deep breath and spoke to the paper-pile sitting on the corner of the desk. "Wilson needed help. You needed money."

House looked like he wasn't going to add anything more, apparently leaving it up to his often disgruntled employee to interpret the rest. Taub decided to play along. "But you like Wilson. You hate me."

House's face darkened a little. He kept his eyes on his aching thigh, rubbing his hand steadily along its length, muttering almost as though Taub wasn't even in the room. "Everybody thinks they know what I think." Then he addressed his employee directly. "Don't worry. I didn't strain myself just to do something nice. _Wilson's_ paying the six percent. Your opinion of me is intact."

Taub searched his boss's face for anything else unspoken. When he didn't find it, he said - "Emily's awake, by the way."

House stood up, fumbling for his cane. "Why in the hell didn't you say so?"

Taub thought House was about to walk out and go visit his patient, but instead he entered the conference room and wrote: _CONSCIOUS POST UNEXPLAINED 18 Hr COMA _

And below it:

_WHY??_

Foreman entered the room. He didn't even glance at the white-board. "Her husband's taking her home." He announced, half warning and half exasperation.

Both House and Taub turned.

"That's idiotic." Taub said. "We don't even know what's wrong with her yet."

Foreman nodded, his whole upper body tilting forward and back by a couple of degrees. "I know. That's why he's taking her home. By her request."

House hadn't moved from the board. "Vitals?"

Foreman read from the pages of lab results. "Heart-rate normal, O2's good, BP within range. She's alert and says she "feels just fine"."

House turned and stared at his board for a moment, his eyes going over the symptoms from top to bottom and back again. He placed the cap back on the black marker and lay it along the slot at the bottom of the frame, then picked up his cane. "Fine. Send her home." He limped heavily toward his office, his gate slow and lopsided, passing through the propped-open door.

Foreman and Taub both gawked at his retreating back. Foreman followed. "Send her _home_? We're no where near understanding what went wrong with her. She could be back here tomorrow - and in worse shape."

House sat down and turned on his computer screen. "Or she could be just fine and we'll never see her again. It's her choice. She wants to go - let her. If she dies, it's her mistake, not ours."

Foreman stared at his boss. "House. This isn't like you, to just give in to a patient's bad decision. You're letting her go home only because its Emily Kutner and you don't want to deal with her. You're letting your emotions make this decision."

House snapped. "It's her decision, remember? If you think you can talk her out of it, then go - make with the convincing."

"House this isn't Kutner! He's dead. You can't think of her as his mom. She's no different than any other patient."

House was un-ruffled. "Any other patient has the right to decide whether to stay and get treatment or go home, even if going home is stupid."

Foreman tossed the chart on House's desk with disgust. "Fine." He jerked his head at Taub. "Come on. Let's see if we can make her listen to reason, we're sure as hell doing no good here."

House watched them leave. His computer screen came to life and he went in surf of something less annoying than Foreman's voice.

For several minutes, House kept his head buried in some articles on experimental HIV drugs. When his office door swung open wide, he turned to see Emily Kutner on a wheel chair being pushed by Taub. Taub said "Missus Kutner, you remember Doctor House?"

She nodded her head. "Yes." She had a faint smile on her face.

House didn't say a thing, he just stared stupidly. "You shouldn't be going home -" House began.

"-I know. Your Doctor Foreman explained. I promised him that if I started feeling worse again, that I'd come back." She gestured with a thin. old woman's finger. "I just wanted to say something to you, Doctor House."

House raised his eyebrows, and nodded, waiting.

Emily looked wan. She raised a finger. "I-I'm sorry, Doctor House." She whispered, "I'm so tired, just talking is wearing me out."

House took the hint and stood. He walked two limping steps closer and Taub pushed the chair as far it would go without bumping into House's shins.

Emily crooked her finger again and House leaned over a little. She leaned forward, opening her mouth to speak. There was a sharp crack when her hand landed on House's right cheek. The slap echoed once off the wall.

Taub took a step back, horrified.

House took a small, slightly staggering step of retreat, staring down at her, his eyes narrow with shock as though a friendly dog with his tail wagging had, without warning, turned on him and taken a hard bite.

Her small, dark pupils cold and angry - "What kind of a man _are_ you?" She demanded, her voice shaking. "First you blamed me, blamed _us_, for our son's death. And then you don't even bother to speak to either of us when we're at the hospital?" She took a deep, shuddering breath. "Not even when I'm a patient of your own employees."

She stared up at him. A tiny, old twist of human tornado, gathering itself for a second assault. "Well, I blame _you_. Lawrence told us how harsh you sometimes were, how critical of him, how rudeto others, and how _unkindly_ you treated your patients. I thank God every day that He sent me this illness so I could come and see for myself. I think our son was depressed because of _you._ You're a _hateful_ man, Doctor House."

Emily Kutner looked away and then back, nodding her head as though satisfied that her decision to speak her mind had been the right one. "I'm leaving now because I don't want you ever treating me or my husband for anything. We'll go elsewhere. I'd rather fly to China for help than to have you anywhere near me. I don't want to see your face or ever hear your name again." She started to cry a little, but fury dammed up the few tears that had formed, leaving them to pool on the bottom of her eyelids. "You're a _horrible _man."

Taub stepped forward slowly, shaken with the scene that had just erupted right in front of him. He reached to take the handles, to push the chair again, but Emily Kutner slapped his hands away. "No! I can do it _myself_." With wrinkled arms, she carefully turned the chair in a small circle and wheeled herself from the room.

Taub looked over at House.

House had re-taken his seat, fingers probing his stinging right cheek.

"Sorry." Taub said, spreading useless hands of apology. "She told me...she said she wanted to _thank_ you."

House just looked once at him and away, nodding. "Not your fault."

"She must be a little off her rocker since..."

House said quickly, perturbed by unnecessary words. "I said don't worry about it." He nodded a thin nose toward the office door where Emily Kutner had made her exit a moment before. "Just make sure she gets downstairs. Sign her discharge papers."

-

-

Cameron passed Wilson as he entered Plainsboro's main doors and she exited, her shift in emergency finished. She stopped him with a hand on his arm. "Hey. How are you?"

Wilson, who had been deep in his own thoughts, was startled out of his reverie. "Hi. Uh, good. You know, feeling okay." He glanced at the almost empty hallway. "Evening shift. Cuddy thinks it'll be easier on me. Fewer patients, less paper-work." More boredom.

Cameron smiled faintly. "Did you hear what happened to House?"

Wilson turned his head a little in query. "N-o-o-o,..." House had returned home early that afternoon, made them a quick lunch of grilled cheese sandwiches and chicken noodle soup, and saw him off on his way to the hospital. He had been quiet and withdrawn. "What happened?"

"House's patient hit him."

Wilson hated to say it but "Well, it's not like that's something new. What did House say to him?"

"Nothing." Cameron paused, deciding whether or not to share the rest. "I guess I'm not surprised he didn't mention it. She...it was Kutner's mom - Emily Kutner. She came to his office, said something about blaming House for Kutner's suicide, and then she hit him." Cameron gave his arm a gentle squeeze, said goodnight and exited the double doors of Plainsboro.

Wilson thought for a moment. He should call him. Then he turned on his heel and followed Cameron out the door.

-

-

House heard the front door close, and pulled in a readying breath. Wilson wasted no time in tracking him down in the bedroom where House was slouched out on the king-size with the television on Jeopardy.

Wilson took the remote from the mattress beside House and muted the TV. "Why didn't you tell me what happened today?"

House un-muted his show with a second remote and said "Because it wasn't important."

"Right. My lover gets punched out, and that's not important?"

House scowled. "She did not punch me out. She slapped me - a feeble, old ladies slap. I've been bitten by mosquitoes with more clout." Alex Trebec asked a Daily Double and his female contestant clapped enthusiastically.

Wilson muted the television once more. "It's important to me to know when the man I love gets injured."

"I just said I'm not injured. There's nothing for you to worry _about_." House un-muted and then increased the volume.

Wilson re-muted and retorted - "I'll decide for myself what to worry or not worry about. I'm not twelve." He switched the TV off, wrestled the other remote from House's fingers and tossed both on the TV stand. "You want me to not worry? Want me to keep the stress down in my life? - take care of me? Then _tell_ me what's happening in your life."

House sighed, wrapping his arms around the back of his head. "She's sick. She was upset. End of story."

"No, _not_ end. She had no right. Legally you could sue."

House sat up. "Oh, yeah, sue a sick, grieving mother. Let's do _that_. She'll think well of me _then_."

Wilson tried to calm down inside a little. House was obviously not injured, or, it seemed, even bothered by what had happened. Or, if he was bothered, he was doing a good job of hiding that fact. The thought, though, of someone striking him across the face, just for being himself (albeit the jerkiest type of self), made Wilson's blood boil. "I didn't say you should, I said you could. My point is she was wrong."

"Oh, I don't know. If someone other than _me_ treated you like crap, I'd hit them."

Wilson shook his head, mildly exasperated at House's teasing deflection. "Thanks, I guess - and you know what I mean. She shouldn't have done it, and you shouldn't have let her get away with it without a peep. You ought to file a grievance with Cuddy."

"Okay. We agree. All except for the grievance. I'm not filing a grievance on a grieving mother, no matter how grievous she is." House spread his hands. "Can I get back to Alex now? He was about to tell us the answer and prove I'm still the genius you know and love."

"No. You may not have Alex back." Wilson sat on the edge of the bed. "I hate it when you hide things from me."

House stared at him, and Wilson was hard put not to look into those blues that said without saying that Wilson was an idiotic, lovable hypocrite. "I learned from the master."

Wilson nodded to himself. Yup. They were starting to finish each other's thoughts._ Holy crap, we ARE in love. _"I guess I deserve that." He flipped his feet up on the bed and lay down beside House, pulling him down into a long-armed, wrap around hug. "Just tell me when things like this happen, okay?"

House flung his arms out to his sides in thoroughly irritated surrender, his right arm awkwardly stopped short by Wilson's proximity. "Okay already. Can I _please_ have my remote back now, Barney?"

Wilson smiled. "No." And kissed him, raising his head just enough to make it almost mouth on mouth. "And my rash happens to be is more pink than purple."

"But I can think of one thing on you that's more purple." House smiled wickedly and returned the kiss. He said. "Too bad you can't stay home and teach me "Up is Up and Down is Down", but you have cancer patients that need your big, dopey Barney-ish grin of sunshine and sympathy."

Wilson sighed. "Yeah." Damn. He sat up, swinging his legs down again. "Gotta' go." He tossed the remote to House on his way from the bedroom.

As Alex Trebec's studio audience cheered from the bedroom, Wilson gathered up his coat and brief-case. On the table near the front door, next to the decorative china bowl Wilson had set there to hold keys and such, lay Emily Kutner's chart. These were never supposed to be removed from the hospital, though there was almost no rule House had not broken at one point or another during his career. Wilson flipped it open. He himself, as not one of her attending's, wasn't supposed to be reading it, but he couldn't help but wonder...

Wilson quickly flipped through the various reports and labs, turning and skimming through pages of mostly clinical observations and blood and urine results, until he came upon one out-patient psychological consult from several months ago. Emily Kutner had gone to see a therapist about what she described as lingering sadness over her son's suicide. Her own thoughts centered around death and despair, hopelessness and therapist's summation spoke of Emily's admitted desperation and a desire to feel well again by almost any means necessary. She had tried drugs, time away, hypnosis, and had even consulted a Eastern Naturopath for alternative therapies to treat her symptoms.

Wilson closed the chart. No wonder House had kept his team from reading the chart. Unsurprising, too, that House had probably been struggling emotionally with the case, and of course saying nothing what-ever about his problem to anyone.

Emily Kutner said she blamed House for her son's death. House probably blamed himself, too, as incorrect as that belief was. Wilson, for one, was glad the woman had chosen to seek treatment elsewhere.

XXXXXXXXXX

Part XVI asap


	16. Chapter 16

One Small Consequence

Part XVI

By GeeLady

Time-line: Post-season 6

Summary: Once is usually enough when cheating love. Relationship angst and a few other things, too.

Pairing: House/Wilson

Rating: NC-17, Adult, +18, Mature. Language. Sexual situations. SLASH.

Disclaimer: The guy with the cane and the hot a$$ doesn't belong to me, yadda, yadda...

XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX

Cuddy saw Foreman coming, and was waving him in by the time he opened the door. "Make it fast, I'm waiting for a phone call."

Foreman held a chart between his hands. "This is Emily Kutner's chart."

Cuddy waited. "And why is it in my office? She went home last week."

"Her husband brought her back this morning. All of her symptoms have returned, with one additional symptom - she has multiple subcutaneous contusions."

"So her husband wants House...?"

"No. But I think we ought to have House take the case anyway."

Cuddy shook her head. "Unless she requests him, we can't."

"But I can." Foreman tilted the chart toward himself. "I'm co-department head. I can take the case and for this case House can act as my consultant."

Cuddy almost laughed. "_How_ long have you worked with House - and you want to tell him _that_?"

Foreman raised his eyebrows in a question. "It isn't true?"

"That you're co-head? Sure. But that's beside the point if you want House to actually help you."

"We both know House doesn't like leaving a case unsolved. He'll help."

Cuddy sat back. "You have the husband's consent at least, that it's House's department that'll be treating her?" At his nod, Cuddy added "Fine. Try if you like, but _you_ sign off on everything. House as the consultant means he only suggests and recommends and that's all. _You_ make the final decisions - got it?"

Foreman looked pleased. "No problem."

Cuddy went back to her work. "That way if the woman finds out House came to within ten feet of her chart, at least she can't sue us. And _don't_ let House talk to her."

Foreman nodded and left with a pleased look on his usually sober face.

Cuddy sighed. It was good having House back at the hospital after his psychiatric stay, but things were tilting around on a point-of-the-needle balance, and one shove too much this way or that, and House could end up on psych-suspension again. Plus there was the added stress of Wilson's HIV status. Lately, life had not been easy for either of them.

She wished she felt the freedom she used to, to just go talk to him, even if he deflected or avoided saying much of anything, at least they'd be talking. Even House deflecting was House strong enough in mind _to_ deflect, but she hadn't heard much out of him since Wilson's diagnosis.

Cuddy picked up the phone and dialed Wilson's office. She got his answering machine, hung up and dialed his home.

She got that machine, too. House's voice: _"This is House and Wilson. Two excellent doctors who not only live together but share the same underwear. Now that your curiosity is satisfied, I trust you have nothing else to say to us."_ - _**B-e-e-e-p!**_

Oh - Wilson oughta' love _that _one. "House. Stop by my office when you come in." She hung up.

**-**

**-**

House pushed the door open with his cane, and the rest of him followed. "Good morning, Sunshine." He took his customary seat opposite her.

"Kutner's mom is back. Foreman has the case, but he needs you to be the behind-the-scenes consultant."

House's cheerful mood turned a bit sour. "So this is a favor to you?"

"No, this is your department's _case_."

"No, it isn't."

"Then it's Foreman's case, and you're needed by your co-department head. It's either this or clinic duty."

"Foreman's still buying that one, huh?"

"The hospital needs this."

"_You_ need this." House pointed out. "Kutner's parents aren't rich. This is just so you can home feeling good about having repaired something with the name Kutner on it."

Cuddy's face darkened. "Emily Kutner is a special case, and if you had any depth of feeling at all, you would understand that."

"So only special cases get more than the required attention? If it were up to me, I'd give every patient a room and all the medical care they needed, but this is a _hospital_, so let 'em suffer."

"You sanctimonious ass." Cuddy stood and walked around her desk to talk to him face to face. "Our budget is barely enough to keep this place running. Your department, by the way, brings in about two dollars profit a _year."_

"But by saving a rich client, I generate millions of dollars in contributions, and occasionally lend a hand to the easing of your conscience. You may hate me, but you need me."

"At least some people around here _have_ consciences." Cuddy sighed, and retook her seat. "And I don't hate you, but you are the biggest pain in the ass I have ever worked with. Why are you being so _damn_ stubborn about this?"

House stood up. "No reason." He shrugged. "Ask someone else. Ask Taub, he's familiar with it. Ask Thirteen, I don't think she's hiding from Foreman anymore."

"What are you talking about?"

House shook his head. "Nothing. Bye-bye."

Cuddy steeled herself for some humiliation. "Pl-e-a-s-e?"

House turned back. Reluctantly. Cuddy had used her feminine voice. The softer one. The voice that said she needed him badly. "As a favor to me? This is Kutner's mother. I'd really like to send this one home healthy. There's no third option. You have no other cases right now. The clinic awaits."

House sighed. "Okay. How many more clinic hours do I need to log to never owe you favors again? _Including_ more clinic hours or _special_ cases?"

It was Cuddy's turn to shrug. "You've got fifteen years to retirement. Life is long and full of surprises." Cuddy answered.

House took her meaning. It was too soon to draw the line in their little game of give and take. "Besides, you love this." Cuddy pressed her point. "Trying to manipulate me is your second favorite past-time, and _my_ first."

House didn't deny either point. "No clinic hours this or next week, and I'll save the damn woman."

"Done." Cuddy returned to her paper-work. "Your team's already here."

House looked at his watch on the way out. "Well, I should say so! It's almost eleven o'clock."

-

-

"Symptoms?" House asked as he entered his conference room. "And I mean _new_ symptoms - I still remember the old ones."

"No. Only the same ones, and just as bad as before." Thirteen said. She was worrying her pen between her fingers, turning it over and over like a baton.

House looked at her for a few seconds. "How was your" House did bunny-ear quotes in the air with his free hand, "Huntington's" consult?"

Thirteen threw him a dirty look, but her face molded back to normal before Foreman looked over. "Yeah. How was that? You never told me what he said."

Thirteen glanced at him casually. "Because there was nothing new to tell. Everything's fine. Normal. And he was a she."

Foreman turned back to House, evidently satisfied by that.

Taub entered the room and sat down. It was the first time anyone had seen him in almost a week. "I still work here." He answered their questioning stares.

House turned to the white-board and saw that Foreman had already written the symptoms down one side. House picked up the felt eraser and rubbed them out. Then, with a glare at Foreman, he wrote the exact same words down again in his own hand-writing. He looked at Foreman again and by way of explanation, "Your hand-writing is just too girly for my comfort level."

Foreman sat back, crossing his arms. "Differential, people?" He asked with a little smile of satisfaction when House glared at him even harder.

House put a finger to his lip and twiddled, his face in deep thought. "That's a boring word, isn't it? Especially since Foreman said it. I think we need a new one." He held up a finger in a eureka! "I know. How about Dissimilitude? Has a nice ring to it. Almost the same number of syllables, starts with a "D"." House wrote that on the white-board above the symptoms.

"This is my new word from now-on." He instructed. "Use it around me. You say "differential", and you'll be doing my clinic hours for the next fifteen years."

Taub suggested. "Has anyone interviewed the husband?"

"Is he looking for a job?" House asked. "We already spoke to the man twice. He doesn't know - won't tell. Either way makes no difference. Whoops! I mean - no dissimili_**-t**_."

"Then what?" Taub asked. "We give her the same treatment, she improves, goes home and comes back in a week, no better off than before."

House sat down and rested his legs on the table, lifting his sore right leg over his left with the help of both hands. He hissed, easing it into place. Any movement was met with an angry cramp and a lingering bolt of pain that snaked to his ankle. Lousy Celebrex. Lousy Ativan. Lousy prescribing idiot.

"Or," House countered, "we give her the same treatments, she _improves_, we keep her here, and she continues to live while we figure out what's wrong with her."

"What if she won't stay?" Thirteen asked.

House gave them all a strange look. "Did you all drink from the same schnapps bottle this morning? Don't mention my name. You really think she'll go home this time, after almost dying the _last_ time?"

"You want us to lie?" Thirteen asked.

House shook his head. "It's not lying when Cuddy's already approved. All you have to do is be the pretending attending."

Thirteen shook her head also. "If she asks if you're on the case, I'm not going to lie."

"Fine. Be an idiot." House said. "Just make sure she stays."

When Thirteen didn't move, House lifted his hands in defeat. "Foreman. Go use your charm to - wait - never mind." He said with a second look and second thought, "I forgot that you don't possess any charm." House turned dubious eyes to Taub, rolled his eyes and, with reluctance, eased his legs back to the floor and stood, using his cane and the table for extra support. "The "B" contestants are out, Wilson's in."

"He wasn't looking very well this morning." Taub cautioned.

House nodded. "But his wiener-dog smile can charm the pants off anyone. Always works on me." House walked out into the hallway. Looked back. "But then, the sight of a rubber glove works on me."

-

-

Wilson spoke soothing words to House's patient. Misses Kutner finally agreed to House's team treating her, "As long as that awful man doesn't come near me."

Wilson felt a strong urge to render counsel about House. Admittedly, he lacked the social graces, but..."He can be an ass, but he really is an excellent doctor, you know."

"Lawrence told me _all_ about Greg House."

"And absolutely everything was negative?" Wilson didn't believe it. Kutner had worked well with House. He'd stood up to him, often pressed his own theories, worked hard, and seemed to have loved the job. At least it seemed that way until he'd shot himself.

Emily Kutner looked a little uncomfortable. "No..." Her _no_ still had a qualifier attached to it. It was a _no_ with a _but_.

Wilson glanced through her chart, and stopped on the copies of the multi-disciplinary notes from her Nature-o-path. Wilson read for a moment. They appeared somewhat vague. "How long have you been going to this therapist?"

"Twice a week for a few months. She's helping with my stress."

Wilson hadn't seen his own psychologist for weeks, and he'd missed his last appointment with his HIV specialist. Plus he had been lying to House about both. _That stops now. _"What kind of therapy?"

"Relaxation techniques, physical meditation, oxygen rejuvenation.." She trailed off.

Wilson wondered what exactly was "physical meditation". Wilson ventured - "So, massage, stones, heat, isolation chamber - things like that?"

"Yes. And Mountain Rapture."

That sounded strange. "You mean dark glasses with scenes of the out-doors, a breeze on your face?" It did sound relaxing. When was the last time he had had a real vacation? Or House for that matter? The next one would undoubtedly be taken together. Where would they go?

"No. I lie in this chamber and Margaret, my therapist, makes it so I'm high on a mountain. I feel relaxed, I have wonderful dreams, I feel like I'm floating. It's quite remarkable."

A bell sounded in Wilson's head. "Excuse me, Misses Kutner." He stepped into the hallway and dialed House on his cell. "Did Emily Kutner tell you she's been getting decompression treatments?"

At the other end of the line, there was such a long pause, for a moment he thought his server had dropped the call. "House?"

"She was seeing a therapist." House said, and to Wilson it sounded as though House was putting it together. "Goddamn, son-of-a-shitting-hog-tied moron!" House ended the call. Wilson felt bad for which-ever of his fellows House was about to yell at. He hoped it wasn't Taub. The physician was working out very well for him and his patients, who seemed to genuinely like him. Plus Taub himself seemed to enjoy the regular respites away from his often explosive boss.

-

-

"She's got decompression sickness." House stated as he entered the conference room.

Foreman looked at him doubtfully. "I don't think Emily Kutner's been scuba-diving lately."

House tossed the chart on the table. "No, but she has been getting regular decompression treatments at her quack therapist. Some bullshit she calls "Meditational Mountain Rapture". Twice a week ever since Kutner died."

"_That_ was the naturopathic treatment she was getting?" Thirteen asked. "Her chart said _relaxation_ sessions."

House nodded. "Yup. Worked so well, once it relaxed her all the way into a coma. We should have called to find out who this therapist was and what she was actually doing." House looked around the room. "I should have called." Subdued. "It never crossed my mind that her therapist might be a crack-pot." House looked down at the table for a moment, then out to the hall. "And it _should_ have."

Foreman, not one to hold back from pointing out another's error, particularly if it was a bad one. "One of us might have caught on, _if_ you'd let us do more than glance at the chart."

House swallowed. It was true. He'd allowed his emotions over Kutner's suicide cloud his judgement over Kutner's mother's case. He hadn't wanted to interact with the depressed woman at all, and when Cuddy made him take the case, he hadn't wanted to spend any more time on it than was strictly necessary. He'd been relieved, in fact, when Emily Kutner's husband had checked his wife out and taken her home, and then disappointed when he had brought her back again.

It wasn't his fault that Kutner had killed himself. But Emily Kutner almost dying _was_. He had avoided her because her depression was the result of losing her son, and losing her son was the result of...House shook off the why's. No one knew the why's. Kutner wasn't around to ask.

House nodded an acknowledgment of Foreman's blunt counsel, one professional to another. It stung, but arguing against truth was futile. And stupid.

Foreman nodded back. It was enough. Foreman's words had hit home and shaken House up a bit; he knew he'd screwed up. But, Foreman also recognized, that House was ill, after all, and bound to make a mistake or two this early on in his own recovery. Can't be easy living with schizophrenia and a sick partner to boot. He knew a thing or two about living with a mate who was ill and who would only get worse. Foreman now offered a pillow. "Well, none of us were that comfortable around her. But at least she'll be fine now."

Thirteen, trying to ease the thick tension in the room, asked House. "You want me to start treatment?" Simple really. An hour or so in a pressure chamber to counteract any lingering effects of the decompression "therapy", another CT to make certain Emily was still experiencing no bleeds anywhere, and prescription anti-inflammatory's for her swollen, painful joints.

House turned away. "No. I'll treat her."

-

-

Emily Kutner was not pleased to see Gregory House. "What are you doing here?" She asked sharply when he entered her room, sliding closed the glass door behind him.

"My team has figured out what's wrong with you."

"Oh?" She seemed less interested in her recovery since the information was suddenly coming from House.

"Yes. You've been seeing this therapist," House checked the name, "Styler. She's been giving you decompression treatments to help you with your depression. Unfortunately, that's why you went into a coma and almost died. Good thing your husband brought you back when he did. A few more treatments with this quack and you would have."

Emily thought about it for a second or two. "But I feel so wonderful when I'm in there."

"It's called oxygen deprivation. The chamber might have been heavily oxygenated, but your body doesn't absorb it any faster even so. And, at the altitude the thing was set for, you were basically on the last leg to the top of Everest twice a week. Fluid builds up in the lungs and tissues, capillaries burst and leak blood into your extremities, limbs swell, and you get pain in your joints and pretty much everywhere else."

"What do I do?"

"Nothing. I keep you here, you spend a few hours in a compression chamber, and you go home and take ibuprofen for a few days until the joint pain eases. You got off lucky. A heavy brain bleed would have killed you."

"Oh...dear." Emily sounded a little embarrassed. "I didn't mean to be so harsh."

House nodded, understanding that she was now not speaking of her therapy. "Me neither. Lawrence was good kid." House finally decided to say it to someone. She did as well as any, probably better than most. Emily was the right person, actually and, best of all, soon she would go away and so never repeat it to anyone else. "I was sorry to lose him, though I imagine not as much as you were."

Suddenly Emily snatched out and grabbed his hand, pulling it to her old woman's chest, her breasts flattened with age and sagging with gravity. She began to cry in earnest, gripping his hand like it was a life-raft. "I miss him so much." She whispered. The words came out like they were causing her real physical pain. Hard and pushed out, as though it was all she could do just to speak them. "Do you have any idea what's it's like to lose someone, see them disappear, and have no idea why."

Her light brown eyes bored into his, caught and held them in a soul-to-soul gaze. House, not only shocked at her touch but her unexpected overflow of sorrow, could not look away. She was locked together with him, and she held the only key.

But, yes, he knew.

"To wonder if it was _you_ who caused it? If th-there was something you might...have done - c-could have done, to stop it? I was his _mother_." As though that meant all things pertaining to her son had been on her shoulders. Her son's mind, heart and life, and she had stumbled; dropped him; lost him from her sight. And then, reeling, had tripped over his body much later, in an area she had not thought to look.

"It feels very much like _I'm_ dying, too." Finally, she let his eyes go and hers drifted to the hallway where people walked back and forth, working. A normal day. Normal things.

She looked back at House who was just recovering his composure from the gamut of emotions that were pooling at his feet. "Can you think of anything, Doctor House, that might tell me why my son wanted to die?"

House was tongue-tied. No. He hadn't known Kutner well enough to even guess. No one had seen anything amiss. He should have, but he didn't. House suddenly remembered how sick he himself had been at the time. Hallucinating, insomnia to the tune of days on end. Not eating. Not coping.

Missing Wilson who, though present, had left him to deal on his own. And deeply unhappy.

_"Twenty-five percent of suicides show no outward signs of depression. If he had reached out to us, we would have helped him. He didn't." _ Thirteen had stated at the time.

House understood enough about himself to know that _he_ would not have reached out either. And knowing that, a gun, or pills, or something, might have ended up in his own hand had he not gotten help when he did.

Ironically enough, the final vivid hallucination he'd experienced of Cuddy and himself had probably saved his life. It had blown the whole thing wide open. Even _he_ finally understood at that moment how sick he really was.

"I'm sorry." House said. "I don't have an answer for you."

House left the room and Emily to her tears. Wilson was waiting for him, leaning against a counter across the hallway. "She's okay?"

House nodded. "Physically." He looked at Wilson. "I need the name of your therapist, the psychologist." He tossed a thumb over his shoulder, back toward his patient. "She could use someone to talk to."

Wilson nodded. "I'll get you a business card."

House had a thought. "How's that going for you, anyway?"

Wilson bit his lip. "Um. I've, uh, been lying to you, House. I haven't been going lately. But I'm going to correct that this week."

House accepted the confession simply enough. But he looked a little worried. "Why'd you stop? Because of me? My bathtub trips aren't getting to be too much, are they?" It was asked with gentle humor, but at the same time, Wilson could see House was half serious.

"No. I'm doing okay, emotionally. Physically...not so good."

House now looked alarmed. "Well, we have to get your med's checked. Toxic side effects, the specialist needs to change the-"

Wilson held up a hand. "-We will. I'm just more nauseous than usual and tired most of the time."

House nodded. "Good. I mean not-so-good, but you know, _good_." Then he asked, surprising Wilson nearly out of his shoes. "Is it all right if I come along this time? Or, if you want, I guess I could wait-"

"-No, no," Wilson jumped in before House talked himself out of this, relationship-wise, very healthy move. "Please. I'd appreciate it."

House tapped his cane on the floor. He seemed, momentarily at least, more emotionally relaxed than he'd been in days. "I don't want to be kept out of the loop anymore." He gestured back and forth between them. "I mean, when it comes to how you're doing, physically or otherwise."

Wilson liked the sound of that. "That deal has to be a two way street. No more hiding it when things are going badly."

A tiny nod. "Deal."

Wilson knew it was an arrangement that would be far harder on House than on him. But it was a whole, new move on both their parts. He hoped it might bring refreshing change to both their co-dependant, screwed-up neuroses. Wilson didn't even glance around to see if anyone was looking. He took House by surprise and quickly kissed him on the lips. "See you at home."

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Part XVII asap


	17. Chapter 17

One Small Consequence

Part XVII (Final)

By GeeLady

Time-line: Post-season 6

Summary: Once is usually enough when cheating love. Relationship angst and a few other things, too.

Pairing: House/Wilson

Rating: NC-17, Adult, +18, Mature. Language. Sexual situations. SLASH.

Disclaimer: The guy with the cane and the hot a$$ doesn't belong to me, yadda, yadda...

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A low, sonorous groan escaped his lips as he entered his lover. This was Wilson his favorite way - him face-down with his own body pressing down on his tight entrance. There was nothing like it in the world.

And Wilson was clearly enjoying it, too, writhing beneath him, his breaths ragged with lust. It had been a long time since Wilson had enjoyed this end of love-making, where he was being dominated by House, the heavier, more insistent partner.

Wilson moaned as his lover thrust deeply again and again, Wilson raising his ass to him, slamming back for every each forward movement. A rhythm of equal opportunity pleasure. For a man who was so reserved when it came to feelings and anything that smacked of sentiment, House was not shy in the bedroom at all. He told Wilson what he wanted or, better yet, simply showed him by often initiating and then taking him to the explosive end of burning pleasure.

House pushed in once more, spreading him and diving deep, and Wilson moaned with the feel of him. It was the greatest possible few seconds of pleasure and pain, a physical invasion of the first order. Wilson felt loved, desirable and worthy when he was here. House made him know he was adored and appreciated no matter what his disease did next, whether it made him sleep twelve hours a day, or what it made his face looked like that week.

House pumped, rolling forward and back into a frantic rush of pressure and release, groaning as he came and slamming into his lover as hard as possible to derive every sensation for as many extra seconds as flesh allowed.

Eventually he softened too much to do anything more than slip out. He rolled off, making sure he had a finger on the lip of the condom to bring it back into the outside cool air of the world with him. He panted for a minute or so, turning his head to look over at his partner.

Wilson was slumped, a boneless rag doll of post-coital delight. His own urgent back-thrusts had taken him to the heights of nerve-fired orgasm, and now he was deflating like a balloon. "That was great."

House's heart-rate slowly dropped back to normal and his breathing followed. "Glad you approve."

"Oh, I approve." Wilson said, rolling over onto his side to reduce the amount of after-sex fluids that inevitably got on the sheets, which they would have to change in any case. Then, on his hands and knees, he scooted off the bed. "I'm going to take a shower."

House nodded and watched Wilson walk out of the bedroom, disappear to the bathroom, closing the door. House heard the fan start and then the water. He rested for a few more seconds, then sat up himself. He was still wearing the condom and padded to the smaller en-suite to remove it. Rinsing it in the sink, he carefully checked to make sure it was intact. It was only at this moment he recalled Wilson's rule about double condoms. A good rule, but in the rush of scatter-brained desire, he had forgotten to put on the second one.

House went to the side table and sure enough, there sat the second condom that he'd forgotten and Wilson hadn't noticed. He had even torn it open in preparation. "Shit."

House returned to the washroom to examine the condom under the bright fluorescent lighting. The closed end was intact, and all along the shaft on all sides. Check.

House fingered the upper edges of the rubber, near the open ring at the top. He froze in place. There was a small tear. Just a few millimeters, but enough that it gave him shivers and made his heart re-visit the post-sex hammering. At the sight of the torn condom, it was leaping all over the place in his chest cavity. Double shit.

When he heard the shower stop, he quickly wrapped the thing up in a few sheets of toilet paper and flushed it.

Wilson passed by innocently, patting House on his left bum cheek as he did. "Everything good?"

House answered with a small nod. That seemed to satisfy Wilson and he stole a kiss from House's scratchy face. Wilson worked today. House didn't, deciding that he could slip in a trip to his own physician just before his regular weekly visit to Nolan.

House was glad his therapist worked an hour away, and had chosen his regular physician for precisely the same reason. Neither Nolan nor Ully worked at Plainsboro. Privacy was the word.

-

-

"You checked it thoroughly? No traces outside of the condom?"

House nodded. "There was nothing. It was clean."

House's specialist nodded. "That's a relief." The middle-aged Ully said. "We've checked your blood over the last six months and so far you're clean, but in the light of this, I think we ought to start that up again, just to be safe."

House sighed at his oversight. It was a stupid mistake.

"How's everything else going?"

"Fine."

She nodded again. When ever she did, her long salt and pepper ponytail bobbed around on the back of her head. "Okay, that's it, then. See you in two weeks."

House nodded and let the nurse take two vials of blood. The medical clerk made several appointments to take two more vials at two weeks, then at two months, then at three, four, five and six months. Safety was the word.

House started up his bike, revving the engine a little in the cold air. Pulling out of the parking lot, he rode to his next appointment, avoiding the icier streets. He wouldn't worry Wilson with this. Not unless it was revealed down the road that there was something to be worried about. Best to be hopeful. Nolan's advice.

Fuck-shit-fuck! House vowed never to be so careless again.

-

-

"I can't tell Wilson about this. He'll freak and that'll be the end of the relationship."

Nolan gave House one of his most patient looks. "You don't know that."

House hated the look. "You don't know _him_."

Nolan was regarding him in a most peculiar way. "Are you certain you _forgot _the second condom, or do you think you might have _let _it slip your mind?"

That gave House pause. "Why in the hell would I do that?"

"You have intimacy issues, Doctor House. You don't want to lose Wilson, yet in the past you have lost him - more than once. Maybe subconsciously you think the only sure way to keep him is to join him."

"I'm not an idiot."

"No, you're not, but you are subject to your imperfections just like everyone else. For ten years you convinced yourself that you had your drug addiction under control, and look how that turned out. Would you like to know how many other addicts have said that to me?"

He didn't much care. "More than one?"

"All of them. We _all_ have it under control, don't we? We're all super men with the strength to quit whenever we want to, and hold onto those we love no matter what. But life isn't so simple. It's complicated, sometimes downright miserably so. Sometimes we have to swallow our pride and ask for help."

Nolan was right about that. "I'm desperate to keep Wilson, but not that desperate." House conceded to his own weakness where Wilson was concerned. "Not _yet_. And I did ask for help - I'm _here_."

"It was the very first time, though, wasn't it?"

House's silence was answer enough. "But you're here now. A marked improvement over pill and alcohol addiction. Is there anything else you'd like to talk about today? How's the stress at work?"

-

-

House was home before noon. To soothe his nerves, he took up his acoustic and started picking out tunes from his head. At twelve-forty-five he heard the front door open, and Wilson walked in.

"Why are you home so early?" House asked, suspending his playing.

"Tired. Not enough sleep last night I guess." He smile shyly at House.

"My bad." House said and returned to his guitar.

Wilson dropped his briefcase by the door and hooked his overcoat on the coat rack. Kicking off his shoes, he headed to the bedroom. "I'm going to take a nap."

House followed him with his eyes. "Okay." He looked back at the abandoned briefcase and the carelessly tossed coat. Wilson's shoes were sitting asymmetrically on the carpet by the door. One shoe, in fact, was resting it's wet heel on the polished hard wood. In Wilson's world, it was a sacrilege.

House leaned his guitar against the soft cushions of the couch, and walked to the bedroom using the wall for support rather than his cane, to lessen the noise.

Wilson was laying on top of the blankets, already asleep. He had shed his shirt and socks, but still had his work pants on. House regarded him thoughtfully, carefully covered his sleeping partner with a wool throw that Wilson's dear old babba had knitted, and closed the door to the bedroom.

He went back to his guitar but his mood for strumming relaxing tunes had been soured. A new worry crowded it out. Wilson hadn't come home just tired, he had looked beaten with fatigue. House tried not to think about what that could mean. There were plenty of years ahead for paranoia.

Wilson slept almost all day. House, not hardly believing that he was in the kitchen doing what he was doing, prepared a simple meal of sandwiches and soup, and went to wake up Wilson.

He stirred under the first touch and rolled over, rubbing his left shoulder. "O-o-o, my arm is sore."

House said, "That happens when you sleep in one position for over six hours." He looked down at the wool throw, fingering its softness. "Want to tell me what's going on?"

Wilson stared at the ceiling. "The fatigue's been worse lately."

"How how much worse and how lately?"

"I'm having trouble getting up. I don't have the energy to put in a full day at work. I've even lost a lot of my interest in cooking because it means being on my feet too long."

_Welcome to my world._ House nodded, himself having noticed all of the above about his partner. "So the med's need changing."

Wilson shook his head. "I don't know. He keeps altering them, and I keep getting the same degree of side-effects as before. Sometimes a new one, sometimes not, but always they're there."

"There'll still not all that bad." House said. "Most HIV positive patients hav-"

Wilson waved away the list of possible's. "I know, I know. I'm getting off pretty lucky." He sounded a little bitter.

"I was thinking of maybe a short vacation somewhere. A place where it's warm. Sun, surf, beer on the beach..."

"You don't surf."

"But I'm kick ass at beer on the beach."

Wilson thought it wasn't a half bad idea. Time away, warmth, relaxation, House with less clothing, and no _need_ to get up, only the desire to. It sounded like heaven. "Cancun?"

"Too gay. I was thinking about Miami."

"Miami's not gay?"

"Sure it's gay but two gays planning a trip to Cancun is way gayer than two gays heading to Miami. Miami's teeming with gays. It's au-natural' gay, not point-blank flying to Mexico for a gay holiday gay."

Wilson frowned at House's often inexplicable reasoning. "A week?"

"At least. You must have some sick-leave coming and I've dodged my holidays for the last three years. Cuddy'll be happy to see us go. In fact, with us out of her hair, she'll be delirious sitting in her office, dotting her I's and crossing her T's. In her book, that's administrator heaven. See? Even our uptight boss will have a holiday."

House was a master at persuasion. "You don't have to convince me, though Cuddy won't be happy to see _me_ go. I don't put live mice in her desk drawers and spread super-glue in her boots."

"Of course she'll be happy to see you go. You think I'm the only irritant in her life? You nurture the irritant in me. And actually it was super glue in her drawers and live mice in her boots."

Wilson smiled at that. "Did you really do that? Or is it another Plainsboro legend?"

"Scout's honor. I take my vow to irritate Cuddy very seriously."

"Live mice? That's nasty."

"Call it a gift."

"Okay. Let's go."

-

-

"Are you sure you're up to this?" House asked. They were ready to board and Wilson was looking a little pallid. "Because we can cancel."

"Everything's already paid for."

"That's not an answer."

Wilson hated to ruin their first vacation together ever. "I'm fine. Let's go soak up that sun."

House eyed him suspiciously for as moment and then handed the boarding passes over to the teller.

She examined the tickets. "Two first class seats. Four A and B." She punched the appropriate spaces with the appropriate stamps. Handing them back, she smiled briefly at House. At Wilson her smile widened. "Enjoy your flight."

House watched Wilson's ears turn bright pink. "Back off lady. He's mine."

Her smile faltered as Wilson's whole face went three shades of red.

Pushing House's wheelchair down the ramp from the terminal to the 747, Wilson said. "Do you have to do that?"

"Do what?"

"Feel the need to claim your "territory" whenever we're in public?"

"I only indulge my obsessiveness when a cute girl or guy makes more than eyes at you. That one was eyeing you with her nipples."

"I'm not a fire hydrant, House, stop lifting your leg every time someone smiles at me."

"When ya gotta whiz to keep your gay man, ya gotta whiz."

Wilson settled in his seat and both men endured the standard pre-flight safety lecture. Ignoring the rail-thin flight attendant while she demonstrated the dubious looking oxygen mask with the rubber strap, Wilson glanced through the in-flight magazine while House amused himself with some private heckling.

"You'll notice," House said in a falsetto, leaning over so only Wilson and perhaps one or two nearby passengers could hear, "the exits to the front and rear of the plane. This is in case we have an explosion in one or both of the engines, or if several of the poorly maintained sections of the fuselage pop off and fall to earth. In an emergency, please remain in your seat, even if it is plummeting from the smoked-filled sky with you still strapped in it. If you're one of the lucky ones who realizes you are going to die on impact, please return your seats to their upright position and grab your ankles."

Wilson tried hard to laugh like he meant it.

House leaned in even closer to Wilson. "That grabbing of ankles bit sounds like fun. Think we'll be lucky enough to almost crash?"

"Would you shut-up." Wilson whispered fiercely when the annoyed flight attendant looked over at them and cleared her throat.

"Excuse me, sir, please pay attention. This is quite important."

Wilson, red-faced once more, clamped his mouth shut and sat back in his seat. There was no point in trying to explain House to the pretty flight attendant. To Wilson's relief, House finally succumbed to the woman's fierce glare and settled back in his seat.

-

-

House woke up an hour later. Wilson was not sitting next to him. One of the server's came by with a cart of beverages and snacks, and House choose coffee's, a cookie for himself and a cheese and cracker treat for Wilson.

Twenty minutes passed and no Wilson. House stopped an attendant. "Did you see where my friend went?"

"No, but he's probably in one of the washrooms."

House gestured to his leg. "Do you mind checking? I've got a bum leg, and he's missing his snack-time."

She nodded and went to see to his request. The forward Head turned up vacant. She tried the rear, and a moment later, House heard her knocking on the door and calling politely "Sir? Excuse me, sir?" to no avail.

House decided to risk the pain and hobbled to the rear of the plane, banging on the door himself. "Wilson!" There wasn't a sound. House said to the attendant. "Find the key to this thing."

She heard the tone of his voice. He spoke like a man of authority. House pounded again. "Come on, Wilson. I promise not to lift my leg anymore."

Another attendant, a young, polished fellow, appeared with a key and slid it into the lock.

The other passengers had begun to crane their necks around in curiosity about the goings-on at the rear of the plane.

When they tried to slide the door open, it was made difficult by something heavy leaning against it. House wrenched it aside, and Wilson's size twelve's tumbled out into the corridor attached to his long, slim legs. He was unconscious and pale.

House barked. "Someone help me get him in a seat."

The male attendant and House struggled for a moment and finally Wilson was sitting more-or-less upright in one of two unoccupied seats near the rear of the plane. House looked around. "I need my bag from the luggage compartment."

"We can't get to it. The luggage hold isn't pressurized."

House said. "Then I need a flash-light to check his eyes." At their questioning look, "I'm a doctor. My friend is unconscious..." He waited while someone scrambled to comply.

An ordinary, mid-sized torch was produced and House shined it in Wilson's eyes. "Equal and reactive." He switched it off. "Normal." He glanced around and spotted a small white box hanging on the wall. It had a red cross painted on it. "Hand me that first-aid kit."

Inside was a thermometer, the flat plastic type that one rested on a child's forehead. House unbuttoned Wilson's shirt half way down, reached inside and placed it beneath his right armpit. After a minute he removed it and checked. "Only slightly elevated."

Whatever was wrong with him was undoubtedly related to the cocktail of medications Wilson was on, their side-effects, low blood pressure possibly being one of them. A sudden drop of blood pressure can cause a person to faint, but usually they woke up almost immediately.

"Do you know what's wrong?" The first flight attendant asked.

House shook his head. "No." House went through the list of medications Wilson was on. Protease inhibitors an cause a person to lose consciousness. And they had both already witnessed what two or more of the drugs together could do, like Wilson's rash for starters that, after many weeks, had finally faded.

"Bring me a cool, wet cloth."

It was done and House placed it on his friend's face, trying to encourage wakefulness. Wilson did not respond. House handed the cloth back to the attendant who had been helpful thus far. "Keep doing that. Cold water. Repeat."

"Will that help?"

"It can't hurt." It was almost useless. "But there's nothing else I can do - unless you happen to have a shot of adrenalin on board?"

She shook her head.

House said to the male attendant. "We need to land. He needs a hospital."

"I'm not sure the captain can do that just because one passenger is unconscious." He had seen plenty of people pass out from too much drink. They were usually isolated, strapped into a seat and left to sleep the rest of the flight away.

House stared for a only a few seconds, sizing the guy up. "I'm a physician, so pay attention: When my friend boarded this plane, he was breathing well and conscious. Now he's not. Whatever the reason is, the longer my friend stays in this condition, the more chance there is that he might stop breathing and die." House had effectively stomped all over any more protests. "Now tell the captain to land the damn plane, unless he wants to have to explain a corpse to the ASAC, instead of just a sick passenger."

The very thin female attendant hurried to the cockpit and returned in under three minutes. "Captain says we'll be landing in Richmond. We'll be on the ground in about twenty minutes."

House nodded and strapped himself into the seat next to Wilson. He appeared to be asleep. Too bad he wasn't.

-

-

Wilson opened his eyes to a bright beam of light. "Am I dead?" He felt dead.

The light went away and in its place was House's long face, whiskers thicker than ever. "No, but I ought to kill you for scaring me like that."

Wilson turned his head and looked around the room. White walls, antiseptic smell. Hospital room. "Which hospital?"

"Bon Secours, in Richmond."

"Virginia? We're not in Miami?"

House lay a hand on Wilson's forehead for a few seconds. "You fainted in the bathroom while we were in the air." Then said - "Still no temperature. Can you tell me what happened?"

Wilson frowned, trying to remember. He recalled emptying his bladder and turning on the taps. Feeling a bit dizzy. "No. I was washing my hands and,..now I'm here."

"I booked a flight home." House explained as he sat back in his chair. "We can use the tickets anytime in the next few days. Whenever you're feeling better."

"I feel okay now."

House crinkled up his eyes. "I'll rephrase. We can fly home as soon as I _tell_ you you're feeling better."

"Yes dear."

"Relax. Another day at most, only this time you pee before we get on board and hold any more the whole way, or I go to the bathroom with you."

Wilson smiled a bit. "That suggests some possibilities. Wanna' join the mile high club with me?"

House smiled, but he wasn't biting, his mind elsewhere. "When we get back, I want a complete blood work-up. And tell that specialist of yours I want to know every possible side-effect that he might have forgot to mention - like almost dying."

Wilson sighed. "I didn't almost die, House. and I know what to ask my doctor."

House nodded, but said. "You wanted us to share everything, good or bad. This is bad."

Wilson looked over at him. All he had to do is turn his head to the left to see House's face in the chair, and move his left hand to touch House's feet up on the bed next to his elbow. That face was pinched with worry. "I'll tell you everything. Promise." Then to make it lighter so they could both stop worrying. "So I've been thinking. Next vacation I'd like to try out the hospitals in Tahiti."

"Smart-ass." House lifted his right leg down, then swung the other to the floor. "There's about ten blocks away. I booked a room. You get some sleep and I'll be back in the morning to collect your smart-assed-ness."

"House, you're chicken soup for a smart-ass, gay doctor's soul." Wilson raised his eyebrows in an intriguing thought. "I ought to bottle and market you. I'd make a... dollar. Maybe _two_."

House looked down at him. Then, in a completely out of character move, he leaned over and planted a big one on Wilson's surprised mouth. "I'd like to see you market _that_."

-

-

Wilson's doctor adjusted his medications once more and sent Wilson home with instructions to rest, eat nutritiously, but to participate in no stressful work, no travel. Daily exercise like walking or swimming was also spoken of.

Wilson spent the next two weeks letting Taub and his intern dispense his patient's medications. If there were any complications serious enough to require his presence at the hospital, he went in and took care of it. He could feel House's worried eyes on him the whole time.

Almost every day he went swimming in a local gym facility. House would drop him off and pick him up.

One night, House turned to him after Wilson settled him in the passenger seat. "What's with the breathlessness?"

True. He felt congested. Too much time in the steam room. "Guess I over-did it."

House stared, trying to see a lie. Wilson frowned. Shivered. "Come on, House, let's go home - I'm freezing." It was mid-winter and his hair was still damp.

House put the car in gear and drove them home. By the time House parked the car, and Wilson entered their shared bungalow, and down the hall to the bathroom, he could hardly breath.

House, bless his heart, had followed him and noticed it right off. "You liar." He said. "You're _not _fine." House startled Wilson by suddenly pressing his right ear against the center of Wilson's chest. "Your bronch's sound like a gurgling brook. Of _gelatin_. You're going to the hospital."

"It's just a cold. No I'm not."

"There is no such thing as "just a cold" when you're HIV positive and on enough anti-viral med's to toxic-bomb Pittsburgh."

"I'll go to bed right now. Okay?" Wilson pushed passed him and headed straight for the bedroom, stripping off his clothes. He had already showered at the pool and was clean, though he still smelled like chlorine.

House followed, watching him until Wilson was crawling under the covers. House took an extra thick pillow from the top of the closet and stuffed it behind Wilson's head. "You should sleep elevated. Easier on the tubes."

Wilson studied his lover as House fussed with his pillow and then the blanket. "My god, House, you're turning into Cameron."

House glowered at him. "Cameron isn't hung like a German salami."

Wilson pulled the covers up to his chin and sighed. "I love you, Hans."

House's glower softened a little. "I know. Now shut-up and go to sleep."

House watched an hour of mindless TV. Then, turning off the kitchen and living room lights, took himself down the hall to the bedroom. He turned on the mirror light in the en suite so not to disturb Wilson, and got undressed.

Wilson was asleep, his neck crooked in an uncomfortable looking state. House tried to correct it by pulling the pillow down under his shoulders in fits and starts. It was not easy with just the one good leg for balance. Climbing onto the bed, he leaned over his partner to better get a grip on the downy thing, and only then did he notice that Wilson's respirations had significantly increased. House placed two fingers against the left side of Wilson's Adam's apple. His heart rate was elevated, too.

House shook him. "Wilson. Wake up."

Wilson tossed a little, mumbled, then fell back into his deep sleep.

House shook him harder. "Wilson. _Wilson!_ Come on, pal, you're going to the hospital."

House snatched the phone from the bedside table and dialed 9-1-1, giving the address and other information to the emergency operator, all the while never taking his eyes of Wilson's face, or the rise and fall of his chest.

As House was hanging up the phone, that chest rose and fell one last time, then stopped moving altogether.

House felt his adrenaline kick in like a nitro-burner. "Oh, fuck..." He felt for a pulse again. It was there, but it wasn't regular. Arrhythmia. House started mouth-to-mouth respirations, breaking out into a terrified sweat. Even in medical school, even during rounds as an intern, this sort of thing had not caused him to panic. He would idly stroll to the bed, passed the white faces of the others students, and calmly bring the heart-beat or the oxygen back to into the lungs of a coding patient.

But this was different. House all but danced for the gods on Wilson's chest, desperate to keep up the exhausting rhythm of forcing air into his lungs until the ambulance arrived.

After a hopeless eternity, it finally did, and in minutes Wilson was being whisked away to emergency with House at his side.

-

-

"What happened?"

Cuddy's voice. House turned to see her enter the room. He didn't feel like twenty questions, but Wilson was her employee, not just his partner. "Lactic acidosis. From the protease inhibitors."

House sounded rough, his voice scratchy. Eye-bags like little half pirate patches. "Thought I'd educated myself on every possible..." He trailed off.

Cuddy watched him sitting there, his forehead resting on one palm, his eyes screwed up to the bed where Wilson lay intubated and with an IV line inserted into a vein on his left hand. "House, Wilson's been in contact with his HIV doctor every week, and even _he_ wasn't prepared. You _can't_ prepare for something like this - for every possibility."

House said. "He's being treated with thiamine, riboflavin, carnitine, and coenzyme Q." He sounded near the end of a very long, thin rope. "He's better. He's sleeping." He sat back in the padded chair, and stretched out his leg, rubbing it a few times. "His doctor - what-z-name's also going to reduce his d4T and ddI. That should ward off any more episodes."

"If he's responding that well, sounds like this was a mild side effect."

House didn't nod. "Yeah." Cuddy knew House had been sitting there for hours on end. He looked like absolute hell, and spoke like the night had been anything but mild.

Cuddy felt useless in this. There was nothing she could do beyond offer help, and she had already arranged all the help the hospital was able to provide, at least financially. "When was the last time you got some sleep?"

House wiped the weariness from his face with one hand, then rubbed his palms together back and forth, the haggard uncertainty in his manner and words palpable. "I don't think I can do this." He said quietly. He shook his head like he'd been asleep in his mind. "I knew the congestion could be potentially something life-threatening. Instead I listened to him."

"Stop this. Stop beating yourself up. You've done wonderfully well so far. Wilson couldn't have done _this_ well alone, and you know it. So you did what you always do - manipulated him into agreeing with you."

House didn't look like he knew it. "_And_ I failed to make the connection between the fainting and the respiratory distress. Mitochondrial malfunction. What happens the _next_ time I fail to notice or consider what it might be?"

"I think your magical medical vision was impaired for a very simple reason - you love him."

"That's not a reason. It's not even an _excuse_. The next time I screw up he could die."

Cuddy walked over and placed one hand on his shoulder. "Everybody dies." From anyone else, it might have been spoken, and heard, as a heartless barb, but from Cuddy to the man who had coined the phrase, it was truth she knew he needed to be reminded of. Speaking the truth about dying might seem cruel, but it sat you up to take notice of what you might change and treasure now, while you were still kicking.

Cuddy leaned over and gave House a quick hug, one friend to another. "Hire a full time nurse, and make sure he or she is fully trained in the needs of HIV patients." Cuddy advised. It was good advice. "Then get some sleep. You _can _do this." She released him. "But nothing states that you have to do it alone."

House looked up at her, his expression, Cuddy thought, and perhaps his razor-sharp conscience just a little eased?

Sensibly, he nodded.

-

-

Once Wilson was home, House confessed his mistake with the condom. Wilson was at once fearful, gratified that House had confessed, and reassured that it would never happen again.

"I'm sorry I didn't tell you." House said.

Wilson knew that. Everyone makes mistakes. "I guess I'm too sexy for thinking straight."

House smiled a little at that. "Don't get above yourself. I'm only sleeping with you for the pancakes."

"Uh huh." Wilson was tired, but it was a good kind of tired. No one had let him even _get_ tired at the hospital. It felt good to feel sleepy in a genuine way.

Wilson watched his lover surf the television. House was lifting his leg again, and it seemed he had marked Wilson's couch for good. He, Wilson, was also marked territory, and suddenly the HIV, the leg, the troubles and the trials of being friends, and then lovers in health, and then lovers in sickness, didn't much matter. What a difference commitment made. A home and a cherished man. What a promise of life deep love brought.

Without warning, Wilson leaned over and treated himself to a deep, lingering kiss. House's lips tasted like nachos and beer, and his tongue gave it up when Wilson dived deeper. Whatever he asked, House moaned in agreement. What a flavor of great living.

And what a mark!

XXXXXXXXX

END (Thanks for reading)


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